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"AQUKHONGA." 



>H!e^f--is^=- 



BI-CENTENNIAL 



• CELEBRATION OF- 



Richmond County. 

1883. 




i-1 



PROCEEDINGS 



BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



Richmond County, 



STATEN ISLAND 



NEW YORK. 



November 1st, 1883. 




>V»VV 



"AQUEHONGA." 



1683. "AQUEHONGA." 1883. 

GOVERNMENT. 
1683. 

CHARLES II., King of England. 

THOMAS DUNGAN, Colonial Governor. 

1783 
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

GEORGE CLINTON, Governor State of New York. 

1883. 

CHESTER A. ARTHUR President of United States. 

GROVER CLEVELAND, Governor State of New York. 

PERRY BELMONT, Representative in Congress. 

JOHN G. BOYD, State Senator. 

ERASTUS BROOKS Member of Assembly. 

STEPHEN D. STEPHENS, Judge and Surrogate. 

CORNELIUS A. HART County Clerk. 

BENJAMIN BROWN, SheriflF. 

JAMES TULLY, County Treasurer. 

GEORGE GALLAGHER District Attorney. 

THEODORE FREAN School Commissioner. 

Supei'vlsors. 

Robert Moore, Castleton. Jesse Oakley, ^Vestfield. 

George Bechtei., Middleton. Nathaniel Marsh, Southfield. 

Abram Crocheron, Northfield. 
Theo. C. Vermilye, Counsel. Clarence M. Johnson, Clerk. 



S^uperliitendents of I»oor. 

Samuel Lewis, Wm. Reardon, 

Clarence T. Barrett, James O'Neil, 

John J. Vaughn. 
Wm. S. Hornfager, Counsel. 



Oox'oners. 

Isaac Lea, E. A. Hervey, John K. Ambrose, 

John A. Holt. 



To Mr. Robert Moore, Supervisor of the Town of 
Castleton, is due the credit of being the first to suggest 
the celebration of the Bi-Centennial organization of 
Richmond County, and from suggestions made by him 
the Board of Supervisors called a meeting of the citizens 
to co-operate with them in perfecting the plans for a 
grand celebration of the event. 

The first meeting of citizens was held September 22d, 
1883, at which Hon. Erastus Brooks was chosen Presi- 
dent ; Hon. Geo. Wm. Curtis, Louis DeJonge, Erastus 
WiMAN and Dr. Ephraim Clark, Vice-Presidents ; Geo. 
H. Daley, Recording Secretary, and Charles Arthur 
HoLLiCK, Corresponding Secretary. 

At this meeting the subject was fully discussed, and 
the result was the authorizing the Supervisors to ap- 
point a committee of four citizens from each Town, in 
conjunction with themselves, to act as a Committee of 
Arrangements. This Committee was afterwards in- 
creased to nine from each Town, which, together with 
the Supervisors, was to be known as the Citizens' Com- 
mitee of Fifty. At this meeting, on motion of Dr. 
Ephraim Clark, Hon. Erastus Brooks was unanimous- 
ly chosen to prepare and deliver an historical address, 
and he accepted the same. At a subsequent meeting of 
this Committee, Professor Anton G. Methfessel was 
chosen Chairman, and Theo. C. Vermilve, Secretary. 

A sub-committee of four from each Town, in con- 
junction with the Supervisors, was appointed by the 
Chairman, to be known as the Executive Committee, 
and to them was referred the whole subject to report a 
plan for the celebration, &c. The Executive Committee 
organized with Frederick White as Chairman and 
Duncan R. Norvell as Secretary, and after consider- 
able discussion, a parade was decided upon, and full 
particulars of same reported to the full Committee of 
Fifty, which, with a few amendments, was adopted, and 
the matter referred back to the Executive Committee, 
with full power to consummate such arrangements as in 
their judgment would be best to make a perfect success. 



COMMITTEE OF FIFTY. 



SuPKRvisoR Moore, 
Aquiia Rich, 
Livingston Sateri.ee, 



Supervisor Marsh, 
Fred. Bachmann, 
Benj. Brown, 



Supervisor Bechtei,, 
Louis Dejonge, 
Fred'k White, 



Cawtleton. 

Erastus Wiman, 
Reed Benedict, 
Geo. Wm. Curtis, 
James Tui.i.v. 

Hoiithfleld. 

C. A. Hart, 
Geo. S. Scofield, Jr.. 
J. H. F. Mayo, 
T. E. Butler. 

]Mlcl<iletO"wn. 

Philip Wolff, 
Gen'l Jourdan, 
M. S. Tynan, 
E. A. Moore. 



D. R. Norvei.l, 
R. B. Whittemore, 
Geo. H. Wooster, 



D. J. Tysen, 

Hon. S. D. Stephens, 

E. P. Barton, 



Geo. H. Daley, 
A. G. Methfessel, 
Theo. Frean, 



IVorthflelcl. 

Supervisor Crocheron, C. E. Griffith, 
C. D. Van Name, 
R. C. Latourette, 



M. E. Wy(;ant, 
H. S. Kneip, J. H. Van Clief, Sr., 

De Witt Stafford, W. H. Van Name, 
Joseph Pierce. 



Supervsior Oakley, 
J. K. Morris, 
M. Conklin, 



Westfleld. 

C. C. Kriescher, 
J. Russell, 
S. W. Benedict, 
H. H. Seguinne. 



R. H. Golder, 
B. H. Warford, 

P. G. Ul.I.MAN, 



Ex:eo\itlve Committee. 

George Betchel, 
Fred'k White, 
Philip Wolff, 
A. G. Methfissel, 



D.J. Tyskn, 
Abram Crocheron, 
DkWitt Stafford, 
Robert Moore, 



Nathaniel Marsh, 
Benj. Brov^n, 
C. A. Hart, 

FRED'K WHITE, 

Chairman 



D. R. Norvell, 
R. B. Whittemore, 
Read Benedict, 

DUNCAN R 



Jesse Oakley, 
B. H. Warford, 
M. Conklin, 
P. G. Ullman, 
J. H. Van Clief, Sr. 
Wm. Ricard. 



NORVELL, 

Seeretary. 



The Chairman of the Executive appointed the follow- 
ing Committees, and the whole E.xecutive Committee 
was constituted a Financial Committee to solicit sub- 
criptions to defray expenses. The Chairman was ap- 
pointed Treasurer of the fund. 



8 



"Parade, 

BENJAMIN BROWN, Chairmati. 
Phillip Wolff, Wm. Ricard, 

B. H. Warford, Robert Moore. 



Speakers . 

PERCIVAL G. ULLMAN, Chairman. 
David J. Tysen. 



r'ireff'orlis. 

NATHANIEL MARSH, Chairman. 
Abram Crocheron, C. A. Hart. 



Tents and Platform. 

M. CON KLIN, Chairman. 
Phillip Wolff, J. H. Van Clief, Sr. 



JMCnslc 

A. G. METHFESSEL, Chairman. 
George Bechtel. Benjamin Brown. 



-Printing. 

. DUNCAN R. NORVELL, Chairman. 
C. A. Hart, R. B. Whittemork. 

Several subsequent meetings of the Executive Com- 
mittee were lield, and finally the following Order of 
Exercises, Parade, &c., &c., was decided upon. 



9 

BI=CKNTENNIAL 

CELEBRATION 

OF 

RICHMOND COUNTY, 

NEW YORK, 

November 1st, 1883. 



Qrder of ^xercises. 

A PARADE CONSISTING OF FIREMEN, MILITARY, ME- 
CHANICS, CIVIC AND OTHER 
ORGANIZATIONS. 



A train of cars will leave Tottenville promptly at 8:30 a.m., 
to convey all Societies, etc., along the line of the railroad. 

A ^teamboat will leave Stapleton Landing promptly at 10:10 
A.M., and land at Port Richmond. All Societies, Fire Co.mpanies, 
etc., desiring to participate, will be in readiness at Stapleton 10 a.m., 
to proceed to Port Richmond. 



LINE OF MARCH. 

Form at Elm Park and proceed promptly at 12 m., along Shore 
Road to Finger Board Road, and return to Stapleton Flats, where 
they will be dismissed. 

The procession shall be divided into four Divisions. 

First Division, — Westfield Firemen, Societies, etc. 

Second Division. — Consisting of the Edgewater Fire De- 
partment and different Societies located in Edgewater. 

Third Division. — North Shore Fire Department and So- 
cieties of Castleton and Northfield. 

Fourth Division. — Private Corporations, Tradesmen and Pri- 
vate Vehicles. 

First and Second Divisions will march from Port Richmond 
to Elm Park, and countermarch along Shore Road, where the Rear 
Column of Second Division will come to a halt. Third Division 
will form along Shore Road on north side of Elm Park, so that the 
First Column of Third Division will face Elm Park in rear of 
Second Division. Fourth Division will be in readiness on the 
side streets, commencing on Morning Star Road and continuing 
along adjoining streets. 

No horsemen allowed in the line unless in a well organized 
company. 

There will be a Grand Marshal and ten Aids, who shall have 
entire charge of the procession. 

At a signal of three guns the line will be in readiness, and the 
Column shall move; and at the end of route three more guns shall 
be the signal for dismissal. 

Officers in command are respectfully requested not to allow any 
one to leave the lines during the march without special -permission. 

On the parade being dismissed a Steamboat will be in readiness 
at Stapleton Landing to convey the North Shore Societies, etc., to 
their destination, and a train of cars for Tottenville. 



Immediately on the parade being dismissed, Exercises will be 
held in the Tent on Stapleton Flats, opening and closing with prayer, 
and the Hon. Erastus Brooks will deliver the Historical Address. 
Other addresses will follow by Hon. G. W. Curtis, Hon. A. S. Sul- 
livan, Hon. Perry Belmont, Hon. Henry J. Scudder, and others. 
Singing by the S. I. Quartette Clubs during the exercises in the Tent. ' 

The citizens in general are requested, so far as is in their power, 
to make the day a holiday, and dress their dwellings and places of 
business with flags. 

Firemen will fall into line in their numerical order. 



(Jrder of parade. 

Platoon of Police. 

Band. 

Grand Marshal and Aids. 

Company United States Artillery. 

County Officials. 

Executive Committee in Carriages. 

" Goddess of Liberty." 

Band. 

Grand Army of the Republic. 

Hon. Erastus Brooks. 
Hon. George William Curtis, 

A N I ) 

Invited Guests in Carriages. 

Band. 

Westfield Firemen, Societies, Etc., Etc. 



Band. 
Edgewater Fire Department. 

Band. 

Staten Island Schutzen Corps. 

Band. 

Societies of Edgewater. 

Band. 

North Shore Fire Department. 

Band. 

Societies of Castleton and Northfield. 

Vehicles, Citizens, 

Tradesmen, 

Etc., Etc. 

Organizations desiring to participate in the procession will please 
report to the Committee, when they will be assigned a place in the 
line. 

BENJ. BROWN, Chairman, \ 

ROBERT MOORE, 

B. H. WARFUD, \ Committee. 

PHILLIP WOLFF, 

WM. RICARD. 



13 

The procession started from Elm Park promptly at 
12 M., and was made up as follows: — 

Squad of mounted police under command of Captain Blake. 

Kickapoo Indians in a wagon 

Fort Hamilton Band, 30 pieces. 

Grand M;irshal Benj. Brown and aides — Clarence M. Johnson 
W. W. Scott, H. C. Britton and J. J. Garretson. 

Staten Island Schutzen Corps, 52 men, Capt. Fred. Bachmann 
commanding 

Chariot containing "Goddess of Liberty," and escort. 

Section of Fifth U S. Artillery, First Lieutenant Brown com- 
manding. 

FIRST DIVISION. 

Marshal, Benjamin H. Warford; R. W. Wood and Abram Cole, 
aides. 

Tottenville Cornet Band, 20 pieces, Edward E. Murphy, Jr., 
leader. 

Tottenville Drum Corps, 10 men, David J. Peppers drum-major. 

Battalion of Grand Army of the Republic, Colonel W. M. 
Wermerskirch commanding. 

Shaw Post No. 112, 40 men, Lieutenant-Colonel Jas. Burke 
commanding. 

Lenhart Post No. 163. 35 men. Colonel David Reckhow com- 
manding. 

Sons of Veterans, Shaw Post No. 112, 50 boys, Archie Eadie 
commander. 

Truck carrying disabled veterans of Shaw Post. 

Citizens' Association, with banner. 

Coaches containing Hon. E. Brooks, Hon. G. W. Curtis, and 
Dr. E. Clark. 

Carriage containing Supervisors Marsh, Moore, Crocheron and 
Oakley, and Counsellor V^ermilye. 

Judge Stephens, County Clerk Hart. County Treasurer TuUy 
and School Commissioner Frean, in a carriage. 

Supervisor Bechtel and ex-County Treasurer Robinson in a 
carriage. 

Police Commissioners Wolff, Barton and Whittemore and Chief 
Clerk Ellis, in a carriage. 

("aVriage containing citizens. 

Superintendents of the Poor Reardon, Vaughn and Lewis and 
Counsellor Hornfager, in a carriage. 

Members of Staten Island Quartette Club \n carriages. 

Invited guests in carriages. 

New Brighton Excise Commissioners in a carriage. 

Citizens in carriages. 



M 

Citizens' Cornet Band of South Amboy, 20 pieces, H. P. Clymer, 
leader. 

Red Cross Division No. 6, Knights of Pythias, of South Amboy, 
40 men. Sir Knight Commander Frank E. Degraw commanding. 

Protection Hook and Ladder of Perth Amboy, 35 men, John 
Campbell, foreman. 

Lincoln Hose Company of Perth Amboy, 20 men, W. C. Rose, 
foreman. 

Tottenville Hook and Ladder No i, 40 men, George Simonson, 
foreman. 

Kreischerville Drum Corps, John Young, leader. 

Employees of Messrs. B. Kreischer & Sons, 140 men. 

New Dorp Pioneer Corps, 35 men, Capt. Tunis Butler com- 
manding. 

Mulligan's Band, New York, 25 pieces. 

113th Regiment, New Dorp Volunteers, 100 men, Capt. J. Lang- 
ton commanding. 

SECOND DIVISION. 

Marshal, August Herrmann; aides, R. Penn Smith, Jr. and 
George Macklin. 

Washington Band, 20 pieces. 

Enterprise Hook and Ladder No. i, of Stapleton. 

Neptune Engine Co. No. 6, 40 men. Philip Menger. foreman. 

Protection Engine No. 7, 70 men, James O'Neill, foreman. 

Sixtv-ninth Regiment Drum (^'orps, 20 men. 

Excelsior Bucket Co. No. i, 50 men, with truck, James Le- 
strange, foreman. 

Relief Bucket Co., 40 men, with truck, W. Bird, foreman. 

Engine No. 8, of Clifton, 75 men, Fred. Bachmann, foreman. 

Columbia Cornet Band of Pleasant Plains, 20 pieces, J. Marshal, 
leader. 

Clifton Hose Co. No. 6, with carriage, 60 men, James Fahey, 
foreman. 

Excelsior Drum Corps of Tompkinsville, 10 men, F. Weben, 
drum-major. 

Ben. Brown Hose Njo. 3, 40 men, with carriage, James Scott, 
foreman. 

Eterick's Band, of Brookl^^n, 20 pieces, Peter Steck, leader. 

Engine No. 9, 40 men, C. Beinert, foreman. 

Robinson Hose No. 9, 40 men, William Jenssen, Jr., foreman. 

Forty-seventh Regiment Drum Corps, 20 men. 

Neptune Engine No. 1, of West Hoboken, 70 men, August 
Schlendorf, foreman: 

Lincoln Club Band, of New Brighton, 14 men, Michael Kane, 
leader. 



15 

Niagara Engine No. 5, 60 men, George Hailiday, foreman. 
Neptune Hose No. i, 70 men, P. J. Dunn, foreman. 
01van3's Band, 20 piecc-s. Prof. Olvany, leadci. 
Columbia Hook and Ladder, 50 men, withtruck. 
Soutli Amboy Band, 20 pieces 

Continental Council No. 27, O. U. A. M., 100 men, Captain 
Daniel Stoddard commanding. 

The Z. Z. Z. Z. Social Club, 8 men, William Ncill, president. 
Newark Cornet Band, 21 pieces, Barton, leader. 
Colored Citizens' .'Association, of Newark, 40 men. 

THIRD DIVISION. 

William L. Rickard, marshal ; aides, C. W. Sanders and W. 
Dissoway. 

Twelfth Regiment Band, 20 pieces. 

Washington Engine No. 4, of Port Richmond, 50 men, E. C. 
Lisk, foreman. 

Osceola Cornet Band, of .Mariners' Harbor, 18 pieces, W. S. 
Decker, leader. 

Aquehonga Hook and Laddt-r Company No. i, 50 men, with 
truck, L. H. St. John, foreman. 

West Brighton Band, 20 pieces, J. ICyloff, leader. 

Cataract Engine Company No. 2, of West Brighton, 40 men, 
Elijah Vanderbilt, foreman. 

Union Baseball Clubs of the Young Men's (,'atholic Union of 
West Brighton 

Elizabeth Cornet Band, 20 pieces. 

Granite Hook and Ladder Company No. 2, 70 men, with truck, 
S. W. Decker, foreman. 

Port Richmond Engine Company No. 3, 50 men, C. Thompson! 
foieman. 

Medora Hook and Ladder Company No 3, West Brighton, 50 
men, W. C. Carpenter, foreman. 

Joyce's Band, of New York, 10 pieces. 

New Brighton Engine Company ^^o. 4, 90 men, G( orgc Bowman, 
foreman. 

Friendship Hook and Ladder Company No. 4, New Brighton, 
51 men, Patrick Brady foreman. 

Oceanic Hook and Ladder Company No. i, of Travesville, 40 
men, John H. Decker, foreman. 

Linolcumville Social Club, 20 memlier~>. 

FOURTH DIVISION. 
Marshal, C. E. Griffith ; aides, F. Eckstein and J. McGuiness. 
In-Seine Club in two four-horse coaches, in uniform, consisting 
of high hats, linen dusters and canes; L. Dejonge & Co., four-horse 



i6 

coach ; four-horse truck from Bisclioff's brewery ; golden chariot 
drawn b)' six horses and handsomel}' trimmed, from Bachmann's 
brewery ; stage of D. T. Cornell, real estate agent, drawn by four 
horses ; chariot from Eckstein's brewery, drawn by ten horses, and 
beautifully decorated ; old-fashioned truck drawn by four oxen ; 
Clark & Morton with fine display of stoves and ranges ; Clove Lake 
Ice Company, " the first ice wagon" drawn by two mules, also one 
drawn by six mules; Jos. Schell's "shoe shop on wheels," from 
Tompkinsville ; George Ross, " the awning king," carriage bearing 
awning sign ; Mersereau Bros., sash and blinds, Port Richmond ; 
large truck dressed with vegetables, by C. L. Meinkeim ; Hillyer & 
Egbert, grocers. West Brighton, wagon with sign ; J. K. Vreeland, 
grocer, wagon bearing specimens of goods ; Vienna model bakery 
wagons ; David Solomon's grocery wagons from Tompkinsville ; J. 
I. Housman's oyster truck ; C. E. Griffith's wagon, sign of Port Rich- 
mond boot and shoe store ; John D. Kohlman's wagon, family groc- 
eries, New Brighton ; N. Boylan's grocery wagon, Stapleton ; Henry 
Williams' grocery wagon, an old fashioned sleigh, said to have been 
built in 1780, in which Harry Vaughn presided, wearing a Conti- 
nental uniform ; Geo. Bechtel's four-horse brewer)' wagon ; gig con- 
taining an unknown Continental, "J. I. C," in disguise ; four-horse 
truck, workshop of O'Hanlon, the hatter; L. Ettlinger & Co., box 
manufacturers, six-horse truck ; Brown's carriage works, West 
Brighton, carriage and truck ; Wadsworth, Martmez & Longman, 
paints; John H. Price, Port Richmond, two butcher wagons; H. 
Matthius' baker wagons ; fine large truck from Beadleston & Woerz's 
New York brewery ; three wagons from DriscoU's meat market, 
West Brighton ; J. H. Miller's butcher wagon ; C. M. Pine & Sons, 
grocery wagon, from West Brigliton ; six-horse "tally-ho" from 
Tompkins the clothier of Stapleton and West Brighton ; C. W. 
Alexander's wagon with advertisement- Stapleton plumbing estab- 
lishment ; Charles BischoGT's four-horse brewery wagon, trimmed 
with evergreens ; C. S. Vreeland's sign of carriage making establish- 
ment; D. W. Merrill's grocery wagon ; biscuit display by Vander- 
veer & Holmes, Vesey street, New York ; VanName Brothers' four- 
horse oyster trucks ; Domestic Sewing Machine Company, D. F. 
Simonson, agent ; handsome display of millinery goods in glass 
case, Mrs. D. F. Simonson ; Thomas Farrelly, .mason and builder's 
truck ; Bardes' market wagons ; four-horse convejance containing 
members of bricklayer's Union No. zi ; C. F. Gallis' wagons with 
fine display of fancy crackers; E. A. Bourne's butcher wagons; 
McOuade's wood and coal carts ; Rubsam & Horrman's four-horse 
truck, handsomely trimmed and carrying "Gambrinus and his aids" 
in coats of mail ; C. C. Jones' oyster truck, four horses ; George 
Frake's butcher wagons ; followed by a large number of private 
carriages. 



^7 

Mr. Erastus Wiman of New Brighton, President of 
the S. I. Railway and Ferry Company, was ;ip[)ointed to 
preside at the ceremonies to be held in tlie tent, and the 
following is his reply accepting the same : 

New Brighton, Staten Island, 

Oct. 25, 1883. 
Duncan Norveli., Esq. 

Sec. Ex. Committee on the Bi Centennial. 
Dear Sir : — Permit me to convey to the Commitlee, through 
you my thanks for the honor they have done me by requesting me to 
preside at the meeting on Thursday next, which duty I shall endeavor 
to discharge to the best of my ability. 

Faithfully yours, 

ERASTUS WIMAN. 

Invitations were extended to President Arthur, 
Governor Ci.kvf.i.and, General W. S. ffANCocK, Mayor 
Edson of New York, and Mayor Low of Brooklyn, re- 
questing them to participate in tlie cermonies, and the 
following replies received : 

Executive Mansion, 

Washington, October 26, 1883. 
Mv Dkar Sir : — The President directs me to express liis thanks 
for the courtesy of the invitation contained in your letter of the 23d 
instant, and to say that his official engagements will prevent its ac- 
ceptance. Very truly yours, 

FRED. J. PHILLIPS, 
D. R. NoRVKi.i., Esq., Private Secretary. 

New Brighton, S. I., New York. 



Executive Chamber, 

Albany, Oct. 24, 1883. 
Sir : — 1 am directed by the Governor to acknowledge the receipt 
of your invitation to attend the Bi-Ccntennial of Richmond County, 
and to express his icgreis that its ;icceptance is impractical. le. 
I am, sir, very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

DANIEL S. LA MONT, 
Mr. I). R. Norvei.i., Sec'y, Private Secretary. 

New Brighton. 



Governor's Island, N. Y., 

October 24, 1883. 

Dear Sir: — Your invitation of the 22d inst., on behalf of the 
Executive Committee on the celebration of the Bi-Centennial of 
Richmond Count}^ is received. 

I regret very much that owing to lameness it will be impossible 
for me to be present. 

I will extend your invitation to my Staff. 
I thank )'OU very much for your kind thought of me. 
I am, very truly yours, 

Maj. Gen. HANCOCK. 

D. R. NoRVELL, Esq., Secretary, S^c, &'c., 

Tompkinsville, Staten Island, N. Y. 



Mayor's Office, 

New York, 24 Oct., 1883. 
Dear Sir : — The Ma3for directs me to acknowledge the receipt 
by him of your kind invitation to him to be present at the celebration 
of Richmond County's Bi-Centennial on Thursday, Nov. ist, 1883, 
and to express to you his regret that the nature of his official engage- 
ments will prevent his acceptance. 

Respectfully yours, 

WM. E. LUCAS, 
D. R, Norvell, Esq., Private Secretajy. 

Secretary. 

Mayor's Office, 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Oct. 24, 1883. 
Mayor Low presents his compliments and thanks to the Com- 
mittee having in charge the celebration of the Bi-Centennial of 
Richmond County, with this acknowledgment of their invitation to 
the Commemorative Exercises on November ist, proxo., and desires 
me to express his regrets that he finds himself obliged to forego the 
pleasure of the occasion. 

With his best wishes for its success in every respect, 
I am, very respectfully, 

FRANKLIN ALLEN, 
Mr. R. D. Norvell, Sec'y. 

Sec'ty, ^c, (Sr'f. 

Invitations were extended to the Masonic Lodges, 
I. O. O. F., O. U. A. Mechanics, Fire Departments, 
civic and religious societies, tradesmen and citizens 
in general, which were generally accepted. The Hon. 
Perry Belmont, Congressman from the District, was. 



19 

requested to ask the Secretary of the Navy to order an 
U. S. War Vessel to participate in the celebration, and 
the following correspondence will show the result : 

19 Nassau Strekt, 

New York, Oct. 29, 1883. 
Dear Mr. Norvf.ll :— It gives me great pleasure to say that 
Rear Admiral G. H. Cooper, U. S. Navy, has tl-.is day informed me 
tliat a naval vessel will participate in the celebration of the Bi-Cen- 
tennial of Richmond County, on November ist, proximo, by firing a 
salute, as requested. Yours very truly, 

PERRY BELMONT. 
D. R. Norvell, Esq. 



" U. S. Flagship Tennessee, (isi Rate,) 

" New York Harbor, October 30, 1883. 

" Hon. Perry Belmont, M. C, 

" No. 19 Nassau Street, 

" New York City. 
"Sir : — In compliance with your request made to the Hon. Sec- 
Teta.Ty of the Navy, and communicated to me, I have ordered the 
U. S. S. Vandalia, Captain R. R. Wallace, Commanding, to pro- 
ceed to the anchorage off Stapleton, Staten Island, on the 31st in- 
stant, for the purpose of participating in the Bi-Centenary Celebra- 
tion of Richmond County, New York, on November ist proximo. 

•' I have directed Captain Wallace to dress sliip at sunrise on 
November ist ; to fire a national salute at noon, and to take such 
other part in the celebration as may be agreed upon by him and the 
Executive Committee. 

" I inclose for your information a list of thf officers of the 
Vaniialia. Very truly yours, 

"G. H. COOPER, 
" /fear Admiral, Comd'g U. S. Naval Force 
on North Atlantic Station." 



LIST OF OFFICERS U. S. S. VANDALIA, 

October i, 1883. 

Captain, R. R. WALLACE. 

Lieut. Comd'r, B. P. Lamberton, Ex. OfTr. 

Lieut. Charles Belknap, Navigator. Lieut. W. H. Nostiand. 

" J.K.Cogswell. " H. H.Hosley. 

" S. C. Paine. Ensign, W. L. Burdick 



NAVAL CADETS : 

Lorenzo Semple. C. E. Rommel. B. E. Thurston. 

L. S. Gwyn. W. B. Day. PH. Philbin. 

C. E. Kent. G. C. Stout. T. A. W. Shock. 

J. E. Palmer. 
Surgeon, G. R. Brush. First Lieut. Marines, George C. Reid. 

P. A. Surgeon, C. W. Deane. Pay Clerk, W. R. Pattison. 
Paymaster, W. N. Watmough. Boatswain, James Farrell. 
Chief Engineer, F. A. Wilson. Gunner, A. A. Phelps. 
Asst. Engineer, Leo. D. Miner. Carpenter, James Burke. 
Sailmaker, J. A. Long. 

The Vandalia was beautifully decorated with flags 
the entire d^y, and fired a national salute of 21 guns at 
noon. 



THE iMEETING IN THE TENT. 

For the public exercises of the occasion a large tent 
had been erected on a portion of the Stapleton Flats. 
The interior was tastefully trimmed with United States 
flags. At the conclusion of the parade the meeting in 
the tent was called to order by the Secretary, Theodore 
C. Vermilye. Prayer was offered by the Rev. Dr. 
Brownlee. Mr. Vermilye then announced the follow- 
ing officers of the meeting as selected by tlie committee 

in charge : — 

-«•♦■ 

OFFICERS OF THE MEETING. 



President: ERASTUS WIM.\N. 
Secretary: THEODORE C. VERMILYE. 

TOWN OF CASTLETON. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS : 

VVm. W. Krebs, Willttt N. Hawkins, J. F. Emmons, 

Geo. H. Woostir Clias. W. Hunt, RicliartJ Christopher, 

Chas. A. Herpich. H. R. Miller, James Tully, 
John McDonald. 

SECRETARIKS : 

Abram C. Wood, M. Langton, D. Pelton. 

B. C. Webster, J. S. Dol.son. 



21 



TOWN OF MIDDLETON. 



A. G. Methfessel, 
M. S. Tynan, 
fames McNamee 



Geo. H. Daly, 
Julius Credo, 



VICK-PKKSIDF.NTS : 

Phillip Wolff, 
Fred. White, 
L. Dejonge, 

C. H. Huestis. 

SECRETARIES : 
Geo. H. Macklin, 
Heiir\ St;mderwick, 



C. K. Taylor, 
Theo. Frean. 
Dr. H. M. Keyes, 



J as. A. Baker. 



Wm H. Van Name, 
Garrett P. Wriglit, 
Stephen D. Barnes, 



TOWN OF NORTHFIELD 

VICK-PRESIDENIS : 

James B. Pollock, 
Capt. H. H. Burnett 
Clias. E. Griffith, 
S. F. Rawson. 



John H.Van Clief, 
R. C. Latourette, 
Dr. F. E. Martindale, 



Stephen D. Riddle, 
Cyrus B. White, 



SECRETARIES : 

Frederick Foggin. 
Michael Walsh, 



Clarence M. Johnson. 



J. R. Crospey, 
L. H. Cortelyou, 
E. A. Hervey, M. D 



J. C. Dissossway, 
G. W. Oakley. 



TOWN OF WESTFIELD 

VICE-PRESIDENTS : 

Wm. Manee, 
Walter T. Elliott, 
John W. Russell, 
A. J. Wood. 



C. C. Androvette, 
H. H. Seguine, 
Thos. Mallett, 



SECRETARIES : 

Abram Winant, 
Abrani Wood, 



Thos. H. Moore. 



TOWN OF SOUTHFIELD 

VICE-PRESIDENTS : 

Rev. J. C. Eccleston, Jas. R. Robinson, 
W. W. MacFarland, Dr. Ephraim Clark, 
John G. Vaughan, Rev. John Lewis, 

Isaac M. Marsh. 



W. M. Wermerskirch, 
Wm. S. Hornfager, 
Geo. J. Greenfield, 



Wm. H.Clark, 
C. M. Connor, 



SECRETARIES 
John Finley, 
S. M. Lewis, 



Dr. Thos. J. Thompson. 



Mr. Vermilvk then stated that Mr. Wiman was too 
ill to be present, and read the following letter and ad- 
dress from him : — 



22 



Theo. C. Vermilye, Secretary, etc. 

Dear Sir: — I need hardly say to you how bitterly I regret my 
inability to participate in the proceedings of to-day. Owing to a 
severe attack of sore throat, I have been unable to leave my room 
for several days, and the physician in most positive terms forbids my 
exposure. In asking you to have me excused, ma}' I beg you will 
express to the Committee my hearty appreciation of the honor which 
they did me in asking me to preside at the meeting. Their thought- 
ful kindness in this matter may certainly be interpreted as a token 
of encouragement to all those who put forth efforts, however poor, 
towards providing for the progress of Staten Island, which, in the 
next two hundred years, will doubtless be vastly augmented over the 
substantial growth we all this day celebrate. 

Again reiterating my deep disappointment in not being with 
you to-day. 

I'am, faithfully yours, 

ERASTUS WIMAN. 



MR. WIMAN S ADDRESS. 

"The completion of a century is an occurrence in a community 
of supreme significance. A hundred years in this age comprises 
more than 500 years in days gone by. 'Time to the nation as to the 
individual is nothing absolute ; its duration depends on the rate of 
of thought and feeling.' 

" Events now lollow each other with such rapidity ; life is so full 
of eager interest ; so much more is po.'^sible now than ever before, 
that within a century are concentrated energies, activities and 
achievements so vast, comprehensive and beneficent, as to make es- 
sential and proper such occasions as this, in order that a review may 
be had of what has gone before and a judgment formed of what 
may be expected. ' We are rich with the spoils of time.' 

"As the Pyramids in Eastern countries are emblems of forty 
centuries of deca}', so in our Western world centennial celebrations, 
like the present, are symbols of the progress of humanity towards a 
higher plane. 

"It is a matter, therefore, for profound congratulation to this 
community that a period has been reached in its history evoking a 
sense of thankfulness for the progress that has been made ; for the 
blessings with which we are surrounded ; for the beauty and salub- 
rity of our homes ; and for the prosperity of our people generally. 
With the peace and plenty, the good neighborhood and good fellow- 
ship that prevails, with the good government under which we live, 
with so much to be grateful for, and with so much to look forward 
to, surely we can all take heart and do our share towards discharg- 
ing the duties we owe to the world, to the community in which we 
reside, and to each other. 



23 

" Not the least of the many advantages which we enjoy is (ound 
in the fact that our country possesses within itself an intelligent life 
and activity which few other communities can equal. As an exemplifi- 
cation of how completely equipped we are in this regard, I need only 
refer to you the eloquent speakers who will address you, and whom, 
but for an untoward illness, it was to have been my good fortune to 
introduce to you." 

Dr. Ephraim Clark, of Richmond, 87 years of age, 
having been selected as President, made the following 
remarks : — 

DR. Clark's remarks. 

" The occasion which calls us together this day is one long to be 
remembered and full of interest: 'The celebration of the Bi-Cen- 
tennial of Richmond County.' We live on an Island which is one 
of the most beautiful spots on earth, girted by the sea — by the At- 
lantic ocean — in 30 minutes of the great commercial metropolis, ac- 
cording to all parts of the world an asylum for the oppressed 
Huguenots; ground undulating and beautifully moulded by nature; 
soil fertile and very productive ; a healthy climate ; blessed with 
longevity ; the shore dotted with springs of pure, gushing water ; 
rapid transit in prospective — all these advantages combined make 
our Isle a happy home to live in, and a retired place where we pass 
away. May her future keep pace with all her surroundings." 

Dr. Clark then introduced the Hon. Erastus 
Brooks, who delivered the " Historical Address." 

Hon. perry BELMONT, 
Hon. GEO. WM. CURTIS, 
Hon. a. S. SULLIVAN, 
Hon. henry J. SCUDDER, 
Hon. BRADFORD L. PRINCE. 

were also present at the meeting in the tent, and made 
addresses. 



HISTORICAL RECORDS 



STATEN ISLAND, 

(Jentennial -^ j^i-Centennial, 



FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS AND MORE. 



Delivered at Staten Island, November ist, 1883, 
By Hon. ERASTUS BROOKS. 



'Guttenberg, witlwut ktunving it, ttxu the mechanist of the new world. In creating 

the communication of uieas, he his assured the ittdepcndcnce of reason. Every 

letter of his alphabet which left his/mgcrs contained in it more power 

than the armies of kings or tlu thunders of pontiffs. It 

was mitui which lie furnished with language." 

—Lamarline't Biitory of IHe GironduU, 



HISTORICAL RECORDS. 



Fellow Citizens of Stat en Islajid: 

THE proper orator for an occasion like the present 
would be some descendant of one either born upon 
the soil or descended from some one of its inhabit- 
ants — one who by heroism, influence or action had made 
a part of its early history. Two hundred years of time, 
long as it may seem to American citizens, is but a small 
period in the history of countries like EnglandfGeK- 
many, Austria or France, the old nations of Europ^ 
each of which count their years of settlement by m^'^S 
than eleven centuries of time. Russia counts her exiit- 
ence by less than a third of this period, or in a period 
beginning about tlie time when, as in 1523, Verrazani 
sailed along our shores. 

The people who are here now, and those who pre- 
ceded them, belong to almost all the nations of the 
earth. 

We know but little of the pre-Revolutionary history 
of Staten Island, and not all we would like to know of 
its Revolutionary history, and there are some things we 
do know we wish not to remember or desire to forget. 
In this respect, however, most of our predecessors were 
in no sense a peculiar people. Whether in old New 
England or present New England, or on to the Hudson, 
the Potomac, tlie Savannah, and beyond as far as the 
Colonies went east or west, north or south, there were 
devotees of Great Britain, who from the beginning of 
the first sign of the separation from the mother country 
dreaded the act itself. 



The foremost men who took part in the war, when it 
came, were perhaps as timid as those who saw the end 
from the beginning, were of this class. It was what is 
sometimes called destiny, but what we may more wisely 
call Providence, or the ways of God to man, that pointed 
and paved the way of independence. Step by step, the 
end came from the day wlien Hendrick Hudson first 
named the Island in honor of "the Island of the States" of 
Holland, and as far as we know, made it his first landing 
place or station^ which it was once erroneously suggested 
was the origin of the name we bear. ^'- Aquehotiga Man- 
achnong" was at least one of the aboriginal names of the 
Island. "Eggenahous,'"th.e place of bad woods, was another 
local name. Here was one of the first Dutch settlements 
in the New World. Here, or very near here, 242 years ago, 
the Dutch Colony was attempted or planted. And even 
then Hudson had been so long dead that his first voyage 
of discovery, as well as his sad ending by treachery upon 
the sea was almost forgotten. No one knows the resting 
place of either Verrazani or Hudson. 

The first immigrants who landed here from old Hol- 
land were disabled and sick with fevers. Even in the 
spring time the voyage continued for 122 days, and 
we read, that like Alexander the Great, "they were 
much put out and annoyed by the angry waves." The 
first home site upon this Island was selected for its close 
proximity to the sea, for its surrounding uplands, and 
for the general beauty of the scenery. This grandeur 
of highland and forest, of ocean and inland views over 
sea and land, has never left our island homes. We may 
speak of it indeed almost in the graphic language of 
Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, when, of his 
discoveries, he wrote home that " this country exceeds 
• all others as far as the day exceeds the night in splendor." 
Later on, September 15th, 1609, Hendrick Hudson from 
just beyond our island, in a more utilitarean spirit, 
wrote home from the Half Moon, "Of all the lands in 
which I ever set my foot this is the best for tillage." 
And tins discernment is as true to-day of the capacities 
of this island as it was 274 years since. There were 



mineral attractions that won the eyes and ears of those 
beyond the sea. But what they took for gold was sand, 
and these sand banks were the first in the country to be 
used tor making a kind of glass which was declared to 
be for "highly useful and ornamental purposes." Even 
the iron pyrites with which the Indians painted their 
faces, was pronounced to be gold until 1645, when the 
Amsterdam Company tested its value in the crucible of 
common science and common sense. The iron is still 
here with, I fear on the whole, much more of labor and 
enterprise than of profit, but such was the old time value 
placed upon the ore that the Government was petitioned 
to protect the gold seekers and other miners from the 
incursion of the Raritan Indians. 

The grant of land which included what is now known 
as Staten Island and the Arthur Kull, came from the 
West India Company, was made to the two Patroons, 
KiLLiAN Van Rensellaer and Michael Pauw in 1630. 
This land grant extended from Troy and Albany to the 
S(nind. Staten Island fell to the lot of Pauw, whose 
possessions extended from Hoboken to our ocean bord- 
ers. Communipaw was named from Pauw, and simply 
meant the Commune-of-Pauw, the word Commune hav- 
ing a very different meaning in 1630 and in 1883. In 
the former case it meant simply a vast tract of land in 
the possession of one man. 

HISTORICAL OLD-TIME PLACES. 

One of these is Toadt Hill, since called Iron Hill, on 
account of the iron pyrites found along upon the eleva- 
valions. In the Revolutionary War the hill was a look- 
out station from land to the sea. The old elm tree 
Beacon at the foot of New Dorp Lane, and overlooking 
all the surrounding country, was also a British signal 
station. British vessels of war covered Bay and harbor 
alike. The Whale's Back was the name of another of 
the old-time stations. At old Fort Tompkins, now Fort 
Wadsworth, was a block house, built for a defense 
against the Indians, just two hundred years ago, with 



only two small cannon as a protection ag'ainst all kinds 
of foes. 

From 1776 to 1783, the British had their principal 
signal station near the present fort, and in the war of 
181 2-15, the same station was used by the Americans, 
with Dr. CLARK,father of the present Senior Dr. Clark, in 
command. The old Guion Homestead, near the sea, the 
present residence of Dr. Ephraim Clark, is one of the 
old landmarks if not the oldest building upon the Island. 
I have recently seen the deed of the farm signed by Gov. 
Andros in 1675, as the agent and representative of the 
Duke of York ; the net rent of this land, some two or 
three hundred acres in all, and still a good farm, was 
payable yearly in eight bushels of good winter wheat; 
the receipts by payment are still preserved. (See Ap- 
pendix A.) 

No British footsteps have trodden upon our shores 
since November, 1783. The little fort, though useless 
for defence now, in the second war with England was 
eqvial to the occasion. In the civil war of 1861-65 when 
an old rebel iron clad off Norfolk sunk two of our best 
frigates, we had our panic of what might happen here, 
but a Staten Island Engineer, Alfred Stimers, under 
Capt. WoRDEN, just in the nick of time for the public 
safety, drove off the enemy and most providentially pro- 
tected the coast from rebel invasion. 

I propose, under three heads, to consider some of the 
chief events which have inspired the commemoration in 
which, as citizens, we are to-day engaged, and in a brief 
appendix to name some of the habits and customs of 
Indian life upon the Island, adding to this a brief record 
of its material resources and values. 

OUR PRE-REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY 

Is almost purely local, except as this Island shared in 
events of special history to the whole Province. The 
past events recall subjects of general interest to men 
who care to know who they are, from whence they came, 
and what they owe to the land of their birth and adoption. 
Our Irish, German and British born citizens through 



the lands which gave them birth, one and all, have some 
connection in the subjects and facts which I shall name. 
I shall be made happy if the hour proves one of instruc- 
tion or pleasure to those who hear me. 

Where Manhattan Island was once, and finally, sold 
for a barter value at $24, this Island, under Lovelace, 
was bought April 13, 1670, of the "true owners and 
lawful Indians," at the following price, the right to sell 
being Indian as stated in the indenture, because the land 
" was devised to them by their ancestors." Nine Sachem s 
signed the deed, and the sale reads as follows: 

" The payment agreed upon for ye purchase of Staten Island , 
conveyed this day by ye Indian Sachems property is, viz.: 

1. Four hundred fathoms of wampum. 

2. Thirty match boots. 

3. Eight coates of Durens made up. 

4. Thirty shirts. 

5. Thirty kettles. 

6. Twenty gunnes. 

7. A firkin of powder. 

8. Sixty barres of lead. 

9. Thirty axes. 

10. Thirty horns. 

11. Fifty knives." 

Later on Cornelis Melyn sold, as Patroon, his own 
limited interest in the Island for 8600. 

Another sale of the Island by the Indians was for 
"certain cargoes or parcels of goods." The sale of 
Pauw bn)ught 26,000 guilders "for his purchases upon 
the Island and Continent." 

The West India Company, in all cases, insisted that 
the four Commissioners, acting as Patroons, should ex- 
tinguish all Indian titles before their own ownership 
could be confirmed. 

The sale of Staten Island under Gov. Dongan, which 
was but one of many sales, included "all the messuages, 
tenements, fencings, orchards, gardens, pastures, mead- 
ows, marshes, woods, underwoods, trees, timbers, quar- 
ries, rivers, brooks, ponds, lakes, streams, creeks, harbors, 
beaches, fisliing, hawking, fowling, mines, (silver and 
gold mines excepted), mills, mill dams," &c. 



8 

All this was to be called " the Lordship and Manor 
of CassiltoAvne," and there was more than ordinary- 
diplomacy in the conveyance. Gov. Dongan conveyed 
all of the above land, woodland and water, to one 
Palmer, both his lawyer and his judge, because he could 
not legally hold it himself; but two weeks after Dongan's 
conveyance, or on the i6th of April, 1687, John Palmer 
and Sarah, his wife, transferred all these possessions 
to Thomas Dongan, kinsman of the Governor. 

To Gov. Dongan, whose liome, castle and hunting 
lodge on the Kills and on the Manor road, the present 
State is indebted for some of its existing records and 
laws. By instructions dated May" 29, 1686, he was 
directed to issue marriage licenses, and this authority 
was continued up to the period of the Revolution. The 
''General Entry " and the " Order in Council," official 
books, are filled with these entries from 1686 to 1775. 
The separate register of marriage was made by the 
Secretary before license could be granted. A bond was 
also required, and 40 bound volumes at the State Capitol 
contain most of these bonds and licenses. The Quakers 
dissented from these requirements, and as not unfre- 
quently before and since, when Quakers deliberately 
make up their minds to a conclusion, they disobeyed the 
law and recorded their own marriages only in their own 
church registers. 

These State records in various forms and upon vari- 
ous subjects, make up twenty-one volumes of the Dutch 
Government of the Province of New York, and all in 
all they contain the very essence of our earliest European 
civilization in all that relates to schools, churches and 
courts of law. Then, as so often since, the law was in 
advance of its administration. In one of these volumes 
are the acts of the first Assembly of New York, from 
1683-84. These are called "the Dongan Laws." 



UNDER THE DONGAN LAWS. 

Gov. DoNGAN came to the Province of New York as its 
Governor in 1682, and was here known as Lord of the 
Manor. He w'as a firm believed in the religious and po- 
litical faith of James II., whether as Duke of York or as 
King, except that Dongan was far more tolerant, and 
hated the French, under whom he liad once served as a 
military officer. He knew his friends and his foes, and 
how to govern each class of them upon this island, where 
he had his hunting lodge far up the present Manor road, 
and his Manor, called the Castle, erected in 1688, on the 
north shore, in a full square of land, which extended 
from Bodine and Dongan Streets to the waters of the 
Kill von KuU. He was as fond of land as any of his 
ancestors or successors in the land which gave him 
birth. To John Palmer, fresh from Barbadoes, just two 
luindred years ago, he gave what is known as the 
" Dongan " or " Palmer" patent. The stream separates 
Northfield from Castleton, and on its borders is the 
source of the spring water brought to many of your 
doors, and known as " Palmer's Run." The Governor 
made this man the first Judge of the first Court of Oyer 
and Terminer, and theTreasurerof the Province. Palmer 
was his land agent and the "Palmer Patent" meant DoN- 
gan's lands, and covered large tracts in different parts 
of the Island and included the salt meadows. 

No one man figures more prominently in our Pro- 
vincial history, and no one upon the Island as conspic- 
uously as that of Thomas Dongan, from the date of 
his commission as the first Royal Governor. His first 
service was under the Duke of York. Later on he was 
ordered to proclaim James II. king, to assist at the con- 
ference between Lord Effingham and the Five Nations, 
and in causing the king's arms to be set up through all 
the villages of the Five Nations, and to place arms in 
their hands. Among his many summary measures, all 
probably by royal authority, was one proposing to an- 
nex Pemaquid to Boston, and the less modest one of 
annexing New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to 



lO 

New York. Another order was to establish in the Prov- 
ince a colony of Indian Catholics. Constant claims of 
authority were asserted over the Senecas, Onondagas, 
Mohawks and Iroquois, and to make an alliance of the 
latter tribe with the Eastern Indians, and instigate them 
against the French. 

The French and English were as crafty in their Indian 
diplomacy as they were desperate in their merciless 
ventures against each other, and especially was this true 
in all their intercourse with the Indians. Only one ex- 
ample of this joint correspondence is added as a speci- 
men record of scores of letters. 

Extracts from Documentary Letters in 1686-87. 
Mr. Denonville, Sept. 29, 1686 : 

* * * "Think you, sir, that religion will progress whilst 3^our 
merchants supply, as they do, eau de vie in abundance, which con- 
verts the savages, as you ought to know, into demons and their 
cabins into counterparts and theatres of hell?" 

And DoNGAN, later on, Dec. nth, answers: 

" Certainly our rum doth as little hurt as your brandy, and in 
the opinion of Christians is much more wholesome, * * * to pro- 
hibit them all strong liquors seems a little hard and very Turkish." 

The Governor's name remained upon the Island in 
his kinsmen for a century and more after his forced 
retirement, but long ago the family disappeared. 

The last of the original name and immediate family, 
the State records tell us, reduced himself by vice to be a 
sergeant of foot or marines in 1798-99. The tombstone 
of Walter Dongan, and of Ruth his wife, was made 
in 1749 in the graveyard of St. Andrews Church. 
Another Walter Dongan died at the age of 93, and 
this one was the owner of a large property at the Four 
Corners. Another, known by the not very dignified 
title of "Jacky Dongan," the Surrogate in 1733, was 
known as a free liver, a fast man, and several times 
" Member of Assembly ! " Being what is called a fast 
liver and a Member of Assembly, your present speaker 
almost ventures to trust makes no really necessary 
association in either life, service or practice ; but who 



II 

can tell ? All experience proves that the bad name in 
public service is not easily prevented. You may serve 
party and people with fidelity, but no man can serve 
God and mammon, at least with success, in any public 
place or body. 

AMONG OTHER NOVELTIES IN THE STATE DOCUMENTARY 

HISTORY 

is the memorable report of Gov. Dongan, covering forty 
octavo printed pages, dated February 22d, 1687, and ad- 
dressed to the Foreign Committee of Trade. Tlie Gov- 
ernor is meeting the several queries of their Lordships, 
and to the loth inquiry he answers as follows : 

" I believe for these seven years last past there has not come over 
into this province twenty English, Scotch or Irish familys. But on 
the contrary on Long Island the people increase so fast that they 
complain for want of land and many remove from thence into the 
neighboring province." 

In another paragraph of this report their Lordships 
are, first by Sir Edmund Andros and then by Gov. 
Dongan, told that the Province of New York will fail 
to supply the needed revenue unless His Majesty will 
be graciously pleased to add "the Colony of Connecti- 
cut to the province of New York," which is " the Centre 
of all his Dominions in America ! " 

Sir John Werden, in a letter to the Governor, dated 
St. James, in Nov. 1684, writes that 

"Staten Island without doubt belongs to ye Duke, for if Sir 
George Carterett had had right to it that would have been long 
since determined, and those who broach such fancyes as may dis- 
turbe the quiett of possessions in ye Island are certainly very in- 
jurious to ye Duke, and we thinke have noe color for such pre- 
tences ! " 

In a letter to the Earl of Perth, Feb. 13, 1684-5, the 
Governor also declared that : 

" The Island had been in the possession of his R'll Highss 
above 20 years (except ye little time ye Dutch had it) purchased by 
Gov. LovELACK from ye Indyans in ye time of Sir George Carteret 
without any pretences 'till ye agents made claime to it ; it is peopled 
with above two hundred ffamilyes." 



In the same letter we read that 

"The Quakers are making continued pretences to Staten Island, 
which disturbs the people, and one reason given for holding it is 
that if his Royal Highness cannot retrieve East Jersej- it will do well 
to secure Hudson's River and take away all claim to Staten Island ! " 

THE FIRST DUTCH COLONISTS 

came to America in 1623, and the first white child, it is 
believed, born in the country was of the Rapelye family 
first settled upon this Island. The want of food, for a 
brief time, took the parents to the extreme Southern 
point of Manhattan Island. 

The first settlement of this New York Province, 
Island and State, was inspired by the landing of the 
Pilgrims. While the first voyage was merely one for 
discovery and venture, forty-one years later came the 
first General Assembly based upon popular representa- 
tion, convened by request of burgomasters and sche- 
pens. It was at this period that Charles II. seized the 
Dutch settlements for the Duke of York, and with them 
the block house on Staten Island. And with the seizure 
came the order that every third man, " with spade, 
shovel and wheelbarrow," is required to work on the 
city defences. The brewers were forbidden to malt any 
more grain. Fort Amsterdam just then, 1644, became 
Fort James, and the great city received its first christen- 
ing as " New York," which it has since retained. 

FOR A HUNDRED YEARS AT LEAST 

the Island was in a constant state of strife or warfare 
with the Indians, and then as ever since the native sons 
of the forest, I do not hesitate to say, were more sinned 
against than sinful. 

Tlie Dutch in all New York were at times even 
harder masters than the English in New England or in 
New York. Staten Island had its open traitors in the 
person of Melyn and his chief, one Kurter, both of 
whom the Attorney-General pronounced Avorth}- of 
death. Banishments and fines were made and compro- 
mises agreed upon for these offences. Old Governor 



'3 

SruYVESANT Stood in double hostility to the Indians 
and to the English, and was a severe ruler over all his 
officials. Having with them neither nominal nor real 
authority, Melyn called Staten Island his colonies, and 
in a second strife Stuvvesant was summoned t<; answer 
charges of armed hostility and to appear before him. 
Melyn then fortified himself upon tlie Island, and here, 
as Patroon, occupied what he called his Manorial Court. 
As a consequence of this contention the houses and lands 
of Melyn in New Amsterdam were confiscated and sold. 

In one of the many tragedies growing out of con- 
liicts with the Indians, 64 canoes and from 1,500 to 1,900 
savages suddenly appeared before New Amsterdam, and 
later invaded Staten Island, where every white person 
was killed or captured. The captives in time, after 
fraud and barter, were returned in exchange for what 
was called an equivalent in powder to be used against 
the people at large. In one of these conflicts, in the 
present New York, the Indians killed one hundred 
wiiites, took 150 prisoners, and destroyed in 1655, 
S8o,ooo worth of properly. And the sole cause of all 
this strife may be traced to the shooting of a squaw 
whose offence was stealing a few peaches in his garden, 
by Hendrick Van Dyck, once Attorney-General. The 
killing was instantaneous, but the revenge was pro- 
longed in time and in ferocity, and ever since the Indians 
have been taught to be just as unsparing in the work of 
retaliation as their assailants. 

For a long time there was between the Dutch, Eng- 
lish and Indians constant deaths by violence in the 
struggle for supreme power. Both the Walloons and 
Huguenots were here in considerable numbers, and de- 
voted to a faith for which so many in Europe had sac- 
rificed their homes, their lives and their fortunes. Like 
the Pilgrims they fled to the New World for liberty of 
conscience, but too many of them when in power, the 
honored name of Roger Williams always excepted, 
practiced the very persecutions from which they fled. 



H 

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 

Governor Dongan's brief government was conspicu- 
for a fierce controversy between citizens of an opposite 
religious faith. He could not, or would not, and this 
was to his credit, follow the extreme views of the Duke 
of York either as Prince or King. He not only hated 
the French in Canada and everywhere with a true Eng- 
lish repugnance, but the authority which appointed him 
and the faith in which he believed and the men whom 
he appointed to office caused a panic upon the Island in 
1689. The Protestant people in their terror for a time 
fled to the forest by day and to their boats for con- 
cealment by night, and those who fled seemed to believe 
that fire and sword were to be the consequences of their 
religious faith. On either side, however, but with most 
impressive exceptions, the religion of the land was not 
one of peace and good will, but rather a religon based 
upon terror, fear, flight and strife. 

The State papers tell us that the Government had a 
religious Governor, and established its church at New 
York and Staten Island, with a salary for the rectors of 
£100 per annum for the town and £50 per annum for the 
Island, to be raised from the people. The Society added 
£50. If the Government sent a minister he must be 
chosen by the people and inducted by order of the Gov- 
ernor, and this Island, we read, resisted one payment 
because " the person inducted had not received the 
Societies' leave to remove." 

GROWTH OF THE PROVINCE AND NATION. 

The Nation of which we arecitzens through all time 
has been peculiar in its birth, growth and destiny. 
Read the Preamble to the Federal Constitution, and 
further back, as the very basis of this fundamental law, 
the Declaration of Independence ; later again, Washing- 
ton's Farewell Address, which has always impressed me 
as a political inspiration in the form of a great paternal 
prayer and warning from one long called and known as 
the "Father of his Country." I use the word as the 



15 

Saviour of Men expressed a still higher thought when 
he said : " One is your Father and all ye are brethern ! " 

And most of all read, as the beginning of the end, 
the bold, noble, manly record put forth in this province 
just two hundred years ago, and then and there styled 
"the Charter of Litenies." The "' order " whichGov. 
DoNGAN brought to this Colony was in advance of all 
that had gone before and has hardly been eclipsed since 
but it has taken two hundred years to win the prize and 
requires constant warfare to maintain and hold it. 

Gov. DoNGAN came, in 1682, "with instructions first 
of all to convoke a free Legislature." This assembly 
numbered seventeen members and never exceeded 
twenty-seven. On the 17th of October, 1683, seventy 
years after Manhattan was first occupied, and thirty 
after the Dutch had demanded a popular Convention, 
the representatives met in assembly and established a 
Charter of Liberties, which placed New York side by 
side with Massachusetts and Virginia. This Charter 
gave supreme legislative power to Governor, Council 
and people met in General Assembly, and it is worthy of 
our time and any land. (B, Appendix.) Let me quote 
two or three sentences only as a type of the whole : 

" No freemen shall be punished but by judgment of his peers ; 
all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men. No tax shall be assessed 
on any pretence whatever but by the consent of the Assembly. No 
seaman or soldier shall be quartered on the inhabitants ay:ainst their 
will. No martial law shall exist. No person professing laith in God 
by Jesus Christ shall at any time be in any way disquieted or ques- 
tioned for any difference of opinion." 

All this is grand, and worthy of any State or nation, 
but neither under King James nor any other king 
did this record become the law of the land, and not 
here, until the Constitution made free and independent 
States, were the people in any sense supreme in author- 
ity. Too long a local priesthood and partisan civil 
power combined to govern the Stale, and each party 
ruled in the spirit of what they were pleased to call 
" Divine authority," but the divinity which shaped their 
ends was simply the combination of Church and State. 



i6 

The king's ministers were the people's masters. The 
real State and the nominal Church were supreme. 

The Crown and Parliament, Avhere the Parliament 
represents the people, were as distinct as the will and 
inheritance of the most unbridled one man power can 
be from a government of a Democracy or from Repub- 
lican power delegated by the people. As late as 1697, 
the Crown instructed the Earl of Bellemont, as Governor 
of the Province of XeAv York, to appoint judges, create 
courts, prorogue Assemblies, disperse revenues, and to 
direct all acts of legislation in his own name and person. 
The Bish(;p of London alone could license the school 
masters of New York. No person could keep any print- 
ing press, nor print anything without the special leave 
and consent of the Governor. The verdicts of juries 
were set aside by order of the king even in 1765. This 
was the kind of royal power which the people boih re- 
sented and rebuked, and which, not until 100 years later, 
culminated, first, in the Declaration of Independence, 
then in the War of the Revolution, and finally in the 
Federal Constitution. It required not alone the one 
hundred, but the full two hundred years to-day cele- 
brated, to secure freedom alike for the people of New 
York and for the citizens of the United States. Indeed, 
this side of the millenium there can never be any cessa- 
tion in the struggles for conscience over error, right 
over wrong, for truly liberty before license, whether in 
the State, the temptations of business or in our own 
personal lives. With Grotius dead and almost forgotten, 
Barneveldt also dead, popular right nowhere esteemed, 
the thirty year's contests concluded, rather without than 
with concessions for the claims which caused the war; 
with civil war in England; Charles I. beheaded; James, 
King of England, openly resisting the Charter I have 
read, and which declared that justice and right may be 
equally done to all persons, not respected, Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire denied 
all civil liberty; the Charter of Connecticut hidden in 
the oak at New Haven, and New York and New Jersey 
included in "the New Dominion," it is not strange tliat 



17 

it was not until 1691 that the General Assembly passed 
the original charter of liberty, which the king repealed 
in 1697. 

As one of the incidents of these early times, just 210 
years since from the date of the 7th of last August, a 
Dutch fleet of twenty-three ships, needing wood and 
water, anchored in the Bay close to the Island. The 
only armed defenders of the Island at that time were 
Captain John Manning, who communicated with the 
Commodores Evertson and Benckes upon the weakness 
of his defense, and in three days New Netherlands was 
under the control of the Dutch. To the great honor of 
the English, however, their possession was very brief, 
for in the March following, by the terms of the West- 
minster treaty, Major Edmund Andros, in the name of 
His Majesty, the King of England, was in full posses- 
sion of all that Manning had surrendered. Disgrace 
followed the surrender. 

THE EFFORT TO SECURE SELF-GOVERNMENT 

In the Province of New York, and which, in one form 
or another, the little County of Richmond at times took 
its part, may be traced back to 1649. The Dutch settlers 
here demanded as much liberty as was enjoyed in Hol- 
land, and in 1653, under orders to Stuyvesant, sometimes 
known as Director and sometimes as Governor, there 
was a schout or sheriff, two burgomasters and five schep- 
ens as successors to " the Nine Men," who had long been 
the chief rulers of the city of New Amsterdam. What 
is called monopoly was then in full force as ever since 
that time. The first Convention ever held in the Prov- 
ince, undertook to regulate the price of provisions and 
of most kinds of merchandise. 

The first Convention met in 1653, then in 1663 and 
1664, when Staten Island took part with Rensslaaerwyck, 
Fort Orange, New Amsterdam, Wiltwyck, Harlem, New 
Utrecht, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatlands and Flatbush 
in a General Assembly of the whole State. This Island 
then had two representatives in the persons of David 
de Marest and Pierre Bellou of the entire 21 members 



i8 

of the Assembly. Ten Counties in 1664 represented the 
present New York. Under the first apportionment of 
1771, Richmond County had two members of Assembly, 
and from 1791 on but one. In 1683, of the then twelve 
counties, two, Dukes and Cornwall, became a part of 
Massachusetts. The representatives of the Colonial As- 
sembly from 1691 to 1769 numbered but thirty-one mem- 
bers ; without Dukes and Cornwall, but 27 on to 1796. 
In each of these public meetings, Richmond County had 
at least two members. Kings, Queens, Ulster, Duchess 
and Albany, as the rule, had no more. In the ist, 3d, 
4th, 8th, 17th, 25th and 26th Colonial Assemblies, this 
County had three members. The nine counties of 1691 
only increased to 16 (of the present sixty counties) as 
late as 1761. In the first Assembly, John Stackwell, 
Quaker, of Richmond, was dismissed for refusing to 
take the oath, and also Nathaniel Pearsall of Queens. 
John Tallman, of Albany, was dismissed for presenting 
a paper "writ in barbarous English !" Humphrey Un- 
DERHiLL was excluded for refusing to attend " before he 
had his money." Another member was expelled for a 
little honest opposition to the Council and Assembly, 
and another in 17 15 for a printed speech "made to the 
General Assembly, without leav^ of the House," in which 
we read "many false and scandalous reflections upon 
the Governor of this Province." Not many of the mem. 
bers in these Colonial Assemblies rested upon beds of 
roses. In 17 13-14, one body was dissolved by the death 
of Queen Anne, who gave the silver service to the St. 
Andrew's Church at Richmond, and another in August, 
1727, by the death of George I., and another, March, 
1761, by the death of George II. 

Gov. DoNGAN was the first Royal Chief Magistrate 
•who permitted the people to elect their members of As- 
sembly. In the Provincial Congress the county had five 
representatives; in the second, two ; wi the third, five, 
;and in the fourth, none. These so called Congresses 
.appear to be but another name for Assemblies, (the last 
■of which was held in 1775), but with a larger represen- 
tation. (Appendix B.) 



19 



THE TAXES AND PROPERTY 200 YEARS AGO. 

Taxes, from time immemorial, have been the causes 
of conflict and the source of more than half the wars 
of Europe. They caused the war with England and 
forced the independence of the United States. In the 
form of tariff's and rates they are the one chief cause of 
contention all over our land and all over the world. 
But two hundred years ago upon this Island the tax was 
just one bushel of wheat for each eighty acres of land, 
and on Long Island one penny in the pound " for the 
County's charges." 

The State papers tell us that at the first court, two 
overseers and one constable were here in 1665, and that 
the Island v/as exempt from the county's charge because, 
as we read : 

" Staten Island is comprehended in the West Riding of Long 
Island, (and both Islands as one, in 1665, were called Yorkshire) but 
payeth noe tax, being enjoined by their Patents to pay a bushel of 
good winter wheate, but never paid any yet because (as they say) it 
hath not been demanded ! " 

When and where, indeed, have the people, singly or 
otherwise, been voluntary taxpayers ? 

NEW YORK CITY'S CLAIM TO LOW WATER MARK. 

The Earl of Clarendon to Gov. Hunter of New 
York, July ye 31st, 17 10, writes as follows on certain 
land grants : 

" Lands between high water and low water mark on Stalen 
Island lately granted to the city of New York for £z^o, being the 
lands lately in possession 6f several inhabitants of that Island, tho' 
now covered with the sea, the land being washed away." 

In 165 1 the boundaries of New Netherland are 
named, and Staten Island is placed upon the North 
River. 

In a memoir of M. d'Cherville on Boston and its 
dependencies, written in 1701, is the following: 

" Staten Island, which is fully seven leagues in chrcuraference^ 
may have 450 effective men, most ol whom are Dutchmen and Wal- 
loons, with a few English." 



In 1883, with more than forty thousand people, the 
Island has no military company of her own, but to its 
credit there are now a score or more of worthy citizens 
who belong to the State National Guard. 

THE WEST INDIA COMPANY AND ITS AGENTS. 

One order and complaint of the West India Com- 
pany, in 1650, was to Hendrick Van Dyck, a so-called 
fiscal, who liad not kept a strict watch at Staten Island 
on the night on which he, C. Melyn, went over, as that 
was "the place where you could fall in with all the con- 
traband goods that he hath run on shore there during 
the night and at unseasonable times." 

This Hendrick Van Dyck, fiscal, is declared as 
" leading a dissolute life with dissolute conversation, 
with passing his time in drunkeness," and yet with all 
these sharp imputations, in one brief letter he is three 
times called "Honorable,"" Beloved," "Valiant "and 
" Faithful ! " 

In the year 1663-4, a real Dutch grievance was named 
as " the neglect of Staten Island by abandoning ihe 
Block House with more men to defend the Island than 
the number of English who came and took it," and the 
answer of Ex-Director Stuyvesant, in 1666, was ad- 
dressed to " the High and Miglity Lords States General 
of the United Netherlands ! " 

PAST AND PRESENT NAMES. 

Most of the present homesteads at Port Richmond, 
Long Neck, the Fresh Kills and along what is known 
as the Kill von Kull, in the trying times of the early 
settlements, were made into block houses and stockades 
for protection against the Indians. The names and 
homesteads of families living here more than two hun- 
dred years ago now hold the lands occupied b}^ their 
ancestors. Among those may be named the Conners, 
BoDiNEs, Crocherons, Disosways, Morgans, Seguines, 
Symes, Tysons, Poillons and Van Pelts. All of these 
names figure in the present as in the past times of the 
Island. Conspicuous among those whose estates were 



confis«!ited here were Peter and Jeremiah Van Der 
Belt, Jacques and Isaac Cortelyou, William and 
Barent Jansen, John Van Dyne, Nicholas Britton 
Richard Corsen, Richard, Thomas, Samuel and Nich- 
olas Stillwell, Tunis Van Wagener, Thomas and 
Daniel Wandel, P'rancisco Martino, Christopher 
BiLLOP, William Norwood (who fled to the West Indies 
to escape execution), Peter Lakeman, Thomas Egbert, 
Abraham Lutine, Charles Coddington, Thomas Wal- 
ton. 

FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 

No reading can be more interesting to the students 
of Revolutionary history tlian the events which trans- 
pired in and around Staten Island. Recent years in the 
lives of millions (jf our present countrymen taught them 
both the cause and effect of civil war. The domestic strife 
from 1861 to 1S65 found a million of men in arms at 
the close of the war, and another million killed, dis- 
abled or injured for life during the war. But these vast 
battle fields in territory were distant from us. In the 
War of the Revolution, as the records show, on this 
Island and in close neighborhood to it, the population 
counted at most but a few thousands. Near neighbors 
and dear friends were, if possible, in arms against each 
other more in 1776 than 1861-65. The King's ships 
surrounded the Island and all the city beyond it. Even 
little Bedloe's Island was held by malcontent Ameri- 
cans, who were nursed, fed and protected by the British, 
and when the Island was visited by a band ot patriots 
they were fired upon and compelled to retreat, but not 
until, as Gov. Tryon informed Lord George Germain, 
" they (the patriots) had killed a number of poultry 
which His Excellency had reserved for some choice 
meal for General Howe's expected arrival." This was 
in April, '76, when the Governor also tells us he had 
seized a prize vessel — one of the many taken elsewhere 
— from Staten Island docks. 

Here, too, after consulting with Sir John Johnson on 
the Mohawk, who gave the largest aid and comfort to 



the enemy, having had three Indians for his guides and 
130 Highlanders for his followers and 120 tories for 
companions, all en route to Canada, the Deputy Com- 
missary, GuMERSALL, Avritcs from Staten Island, August 
26, 1776, of his safe return from a most treasonable 
journey to encourage the Indians to join the British 
forces. 

The month before, arriving June 29th, General Howe 
had disembarked his troops (July, 1776,) on Staten 
Island, and Gov. Tryon writes four days later that : 

"The inhabitants of the Island came down to welcome their de- 
liverers and have since afforded the arm}' every supply and accommo- 
dation in their power." 

In the same letter he adds : 

"On Saturday last I rec'd the Militia of the Island at Rich- 
mond town, where near 400 appeared, who cheerfullj', on mv recom- 
mendation, took the oath of allegiance and fidelity to his Majesty." 

The day following came another muster for the en- 
listment of volunteers to form a Provincial Corps for 
defence of the Island, " as the General finds it an im- 
portant quarter to hold against the Rebels." 

And this unwise Governor writes, further on, in most 
glorious hope, that : 

"This loyalty to his Majesty and attachment to his Gov't upon 
the Island will be general through the Province as soon as the 
King's Army gets the main body of the Rebels between them and 
the sea ! " 

The next month came Lord Dunmore and Mr. 
Campbell, passengers in a fleet of twenty-five sail from 
the South ; and Lord George Germain, a week later, 
writes from St. James, that : 

"The steady loyalty of the people of Staten Island cannot be 
too much commended and their affectionate reception of the troops 
under Gen. Howe cannot fail to recommend them to the particular 
favor of the Gov't," * * * and to " His Majesty's ver}' great sat- 
isfaction in their conduct," and " His Majesty's paternal Regard and 
Constant Protection ! " 

A year later Tryon also writes to his Lordship that : 

"The inhabitants of Staten Island have raised ;^50oforthe com- 
fort and encouragement of the Provincial forces raised in this Pro- 
vince." 



23 

New York, Queens and Suffolk, I may add, were 
even more ready in tins work of profit and honor to 
their British enemies. 

The Governor, Tryon, who thus figures so conspicu- 
ously tor this Island, at the instance of Sir William 
Howe, was placed in command of all the loyal Ameri- 
can levies as a compensation for his zeal. 

In the Autumn before, November ii, 1775, he writes 
to the Earl of Dartmouth, from off the Island, as follows: 

"It is certain that within this fortnight the spirit of Rebellion 
within this Province, especially in this city, has greatly abated, and 
we wait now for only 5,000 Regulars to open our Commerce and re- 
store our valuable Constitution ! The Counties of Westchester, 
Dutchess, King, Queen and Richmond Xi^A the bulk of their inhabit- 
ants well affected to the Gov't, and some friends in all the other 
Counties." 

Here too is a characteristic local epistle : 

gov. tryon to lord george germain. 

" Ship Duchess of Gordon, 

" Below the Narrows, 

" N. Y., 15th April, 1776. 
" Mv Lord : — On the 7th inst. I fell down the River to the 
Phoenix, but before we reached the ship we were alarmed by heavy 
Platoon Firings from the Staten Island shore, which, by the help of 
a sp3'-glass, we discovered to be the enemy firing upon the seamen 
landed for water at the watering place under cover of the Savage 
Sloop of War. The Savage began a cannonade, which was kept up 
for some hours and until called off by a signal from the Phenix." 

And this loyal Gov. Tryon notes "the grief and 
horror which this insult meant to the King's flag." It 
is pleasant to recall the fact that Gov. Tryon found at 
least some men upon the Island who were true to their 
own manhood and to the principles of free Government 
set forth in the Declaration of Independence. 

From September, 1778, to February, 1779, this same 
Governor writes that 142 vessels, valued at £200,000, 
were brought into this port (all passing this Island) 
under letters of marque ; but Tryon reckoned without 
his host when he closed with these words : 

" This campaign will effect the much sought for reconcilation.'* 



24 



THE OLD BILLOP HOUSE 

or homestead near Tottenville once covered a patent for 
921 acres of land, and later on was increased to 1,600, re- 
mains as one of the memorial and historical places of 
the war; indeed it is one hundred years older than the 
Declaration of Independence and one of the two oldest 
upon the Island. Here were the headquarters of Lord 
Howe, and here, by his invitation to Congress after the 
sad disasters on Long Island, came old John Adams, 
Benjamin Franklin and Edward Rutledge, Commis- 
sioners named by the Continental Congress to confer 
with the British Commander-in-Chief. No event of the 
war was more significant than this, every word of which 
sparkles with fire and life. It foreshadowed in the 
beginning what would be the end of the war. The in- 
terview was one of high loyal courtesy and of true 
Republican simplicity. A court of the most refined 
sovereigns of Europe could not be more dignified or 
polite. Submission was asked for in the name of the 
King of England upon the one side, and with all the pro- 
mises and advances that the kingly office could attach to 
submission ; and upon the other side separation and in- 
dependence was asked for and demanded in the name of 
the whole American people. The three Commissioners 
left the Island surrounded by long lines of British troops 
with Lord Howe for an escort in person. His Lordship 
placed liis visitors upon his own barge with kindly 
words and with sad regrets that the mission which he 
had asked for had failed. 

Washington was at this time encamped at Morris- 
town, New Jersey, from whence the British were unable 
to dislodge his little army. Battle was more than once 
invited by a strong, well led and skillful British army. 
But Washington watched his opportunities and bided 
his time. He knew, and this was one of the chief rea- 
sons of his success, both his own weakness and his own 
strength. It was too soon for him to measure swords 
against a trained army. Like' Fabius Maximus, who 
kept Hannibal in check without coming to an engage- 
ment, he made haste slowly, holding that patience was 



25 

the very essence of true valor. He remembered the 
Roman example and followed it through the war. 

BiLLOp's house, wliere lie met the American Commis- 
si(mers, was not only Lord Howe's headquarters but the 
owner thereof was a devotee of the Duke of York. 
He had sailed around Staten Island to prove that the 
Island belonged to New York, the Duke having decided 
that all islands lying in or near the ha rbor whicli could be 
circumnavigated in twenty-four hours belonged to his 
New York jurisdiction, and otherwise to New Jersey. 

For this and like services, earlier and later in Europe 
and in America, the Crown bestowed upcm Billop, in 
1674, near Tottenville, 1,163 ;><-res of land, and these acres 
were known as the Billop plantation. The owner was 
also made lieutenant of a company of one hundred men 
raised upon the Island, and tliree years later, by Gov. 
Andros, tlie successer of Lovelace, a commander and 
a rate collector. We are told that he soon " miscon- 
ducted " by making "extravagant speeches in public," 
and as a consequence lost his commission and retired to 
his plantation. The last we hear of Billop was his own 
charges made in turn against Andros, who was suc- 
ceeded by Br(jckholst. 

Anotlier famous place was the British fort on Rich- 
mond Hill and near the present Court House, now cov- 
ered with trees and embankments and entangled with 
masses of briars. There is l^arely room now for two 
guns without limbers, and the old fort is seldom trodden 
by the foot of man. Here, for a long time, Lord Howe 
and his imposing chiefs of staff made their plans of battle. 
Here, commanded by the vicious and bkxjdy Simcoe, 
one of the staff, the Queen's Rangers were mustered 
into service. Here Knvph.^usen, the chief of his Hes- 
sian troops, drilled his hireling forces. Here came 
Major Andre, but not now as a spv to forfeit his 
life, but as an officer to assist his commander-in-chief. 
Here too came Sir Henry Clinton, watching the uKne- 
ments of the army of "rebels" and consulting through 
many anxious days the probable consequences (jf rebel- 
lion against King George and the motherland. 



26 

The British, July 4th, 1776, took possession of Staterp 
Island amidst the solemnity if not gloom of most of 
the inhabitants, a majority of whom were not English 
either by birth, inheritance or interest, yet dreading the 
w^ar. From 1776 to 1783 the city beyond us, Long 
Island and this Island were without any representation 
in the counsels of the Province. When old Cambridge, 
and old Boston had been relieved by Washington of 
their aspiring taskmasters, the British fleet, which found 
no rest in Boston Harbor, came filled with troops to 
New York for rest, and they found it here in successful 
possession to the hour of their final exit. That depar- 
ture was to all true men as eyes to the blind, speech to 
the deaf and health to the infirm. The heart of one 
who looked upon this glad scene thus leaps within him 
in his expressions of joy: 

"We stood on the heights at the Narrows, looked down upon 
the decks of tiieir ships ; were very boisterous in our demonstrations, 
of jo}-. We shouted, clapped our hands, waved our hats, sprang 
into the air. Some fired a feu dejoie ; others, in the exuberance of 
their gladness, indulged in gestures which, though very expressive,, 
were neither wise nor judicious. The British resented the insult, and 
a large 74 fired and struck the bank a few feet from the spot where the 
shouts went forth, but as -there was no cannon to answer the shot the 
crowd ran off as fast as they could. Another group which looked 
out upon the passing ships gazed upon the scene witli tears in their 
eyes," 

The clouds which for seven years, like the curtains 
of a night without moon or stars, had hung over the 
land were now lifted from our little Island, and to the 
joy of all the sun of day rested upon its shores and peo- 
ple. Among those who left were faithless lovers and 
false husbands who had won confiding hearts in Ameri- 
can homes, and among those who remained were many 
who were tired of fighting for pay, for glory and for 
Britain. Here upon virgin soil were the promises and 
rewards of peaceful labor. Here was part of the land 
which by " turf and twig " had been purchased, and 
which the Duke of York had pronounced " the most 
commodiouest seate and richest land in America ! " 



27 

We may not now say this of the material value of 
this Island, but if there is real wealth in one of the 
fairest spots of earth, with the sea and bay for its out- 
ward borders and within uplands that for two score of 
miles overlook the surrounding country, and forests 
that in their Autumn glory reflect all the colorings of 
the sky and all the beauties of nature, then indeed this 
little island " remains the richest land in America ! " See 
Appendix D. 

THE ATTAINDER OF TREASON 

was in many cases here a costly offence to those who 
indulged in disobedience to authority. In 1783 or 
'84 the Commissioners of Forfeiture of rebel estates 
compelled the sale of the Manor of Bentley of 850^/2 
acres and 350 acres of other land belonging to Chris- 
topher BiLLOP, and 370 acres belonging to BexjAMiN 
Seaman. These two island estates placed about $23,000 
in the treasury. Twenty-four other pieces of tory prop- 
erty confiscated I find of record, but for nearly a cen- 
tury and a half all important local records of the 
county are missing. 

On this subject of rebellion I am sorry to say that 
Washington felt compelled in one of his letters to 
speak not only of the " disaffection of the people of Am- 
boy," but of " the treachery of those of Staten Island, 
who, after the fairest professions, have shown themselves 
our inveterate enemies ! " And as a consequence he 
ordered that " all persons of known enmity and doubt- 
ful character should be removed from these places." 
Whether Washington ever landed upon Staten Island is 
disputed, but among his bills of charges is the folhnving : 

" 1776, April 25th. 
"To the exps. of myself and party rec'tg sevl. landing 

places on Staten Island, ;^i6. 10. o." 

Gen. Howe in his letter to Lord Gekmain, dated 
Staten Island, July 18, 1776, speaks of landing his 
Grenadiers and Light Infantry upon the Island, to "the 
great joy of a most loyal and long suffering people." 
These loyal tory people were, if not as to any very large 
numbers.without much long suffering, and the last record 



28 

was a creature of the imagination rather than a fact in real 
life. There were rebels enough, however, to give a bad 
name to the Island. The Provincial Congress and the 
prompt action of the Commander-in-Chief soon silenced 
all open expressions of treason, and compelled respect, 
if not obedience, to all prescribed public duties. That 
the rebuke of Washington became necessary is proved 
by the sending of three tories to the Provincial As- 
sembly to represent the County. Their names are Ben. 
J. Seaman, his son-in-law Christopher Billop, and 
Abraham Jones. 

The truth of history compels us to see and say that 
tlie controlling majority of this Island people were 
not in the beginning friends of civil liberty nor ready to 
separate themselves from the mother country. Too 
many of them literally gave aid and comfort to the 
enemy. If, however, we are inclined to be too critical 
at the present time uptjn the men of the past, it is 
ahvays a wise rule to put yourself in the place of the 
man you censure. 

Recently there came before me ihe following letter 
from General Washington, written in a very clear hand 
103 years ago, to Capt. Judah Alden, commanding 
officer at Dobb's Ferry, which as a record of local his- 
tory must be preserved : 

Headquarters, 23d Novem., 17S0. 

Sir : I impart to 3'ou in confidence that I intend to execute an 
enterprise against Staten Island to-morrow night, for which reason I 
am desirous of cutting off all intercourse with the enem)' on the 
east side of the river. You will therefore to-morrow at retreat beat- 
ing set a guard upon any boats whicli may be at the flat or neck, and 
not suffer anj^ to go out on any pretense whatever until next 
morning. Toward evening you will send a small party down to the 
Closter landing, and if they find any bokts there you will give orders 
to have them scuttled in such a manner that they cannot be imme- 
diately used, but to prevent a possibility of it the party may remain 
there until toward daylight — but are not to make fires or discover them- 
selves — and then return to )'Our post. I depend upon the punctual 
■observation of this order, and that you will keep this motive a secret. 
Acknowledge the rec't of this, that I may be surej^ou have got it. 
I am. Sir, Yr. Most obt. Servt., 

GEO. WASHINGTON. 



29 

As misery loves company, we must remember that 
there were, if possible, worse evils than this local dis- 
affection. Staten Island more than" once had twenty 
thousand British troops on its shores and inland, while 
all along its borders were the British fleet. Within and 
without the enemy were in great force. Even personal 
aid and comfort to the enemy seemed a mild offence 
compared with the startling mutiny of the unpaid troops 
of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, when, in January^ 
1781, LaFavktte was banislied from their presence 
while pleading for obedience and order, and 500 guns 
were aimed at Gen. W.wne for raising a pistol against 
disloyal troops. Even the loved name and presence of 
W.ASHiNGTON and a large body of troops were necessary 
to compel the fidelity of the Jersey troops. But to the 
honor of these tempted and misled soldiers, when 
Sir Henry Clinton sent three American tories to bribe 
and buy them with British gold they were hung upon 
tlie spot, and there was no more mutiny during the war. 

PROBLEMS SOLVED BY TIME IN AMERICA. 

First, let me say in conclusion, and I shall recite but 
a few of the many thoughts suggested from this record, 
is the fact that people may be gathered in one country 
from all the civilizations of the world, and there mingle 
together in harmony. As drops of water come from the 
uplands into the rivers and from the rivers into the sea^ 
so separate peoples, states and nations, as we have seen 
in Ariierica, may become united, prosperous and happy. 
This we have seen from the first advanced steps taken 
and maintained in the march for free government in 
the early settlements of America. I need not say liow 
much we owe to the civilizations which first pointed the 
way to America; to the Printing Press bcjrn in Ger- 
many, and there and elsewhere lifting the learning of 
all previous times from the monasteries and sepulchres 
where it had been so long concealed to that Anglo- 
Saxon race and life which secured freedom of worship 
to the Church and personal freedom to the State, with 
"right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for 



30 

all mankind. The first real triumph in America was 
seen in religious toleration when the Pilgrims were 
practieally banished from one country and the Wald- 
enses and Hugnenots from another ; but, alas, even this 
victory lost half of its moral force when, for a season, 
those who fled from the old world to secure toleration 
in the new failed to grant to others what they had de- 
manded themselves. 

Second : The other problem solved, and one in 
sympathy with the one I have named is that America 
is the home of the banished, exiled and voluntary 
escaping peoples of the crowded nations of Europe. 
We count about four millions of our people as immi- 
grants from the old world, with probably as many more 
millions of their children born upon the soil. We are 
often alarmed at this rush across the seas, numbering, as 
they do at times, five, six and even seven hundred thous- 
and in single years of time, and some of these multi- 
tudes are of the very ignorant, the very poor, and too 
many of the vicious classes. For these unwelcome 
classes there is but one relief, and that relief is the best 
possible education in all those solid branches of learn- 
ing which teach first of all the ways of moral and 
material self support ; and next to this, or rather as a 
part of this, the kind of education vvhicTi makes honest 
and intelligent men and women. On this strong foun- 
dation you may build the best possible citizenship. No 
intelligent foreign born citizen, whatever his religious 
or political faith, will complain when I say that all who 
come to our shores for homes or for permanent trade, 
for living and dying, for the gains of prosperity or to 
endure the trials of adversity, should be thoroughly 
Americanized, and first of all in our schools and semin- 
aries of learning and then in the letter and spirit of our 
liberal form of Government. Where these fail the dis- 
cipline of authorized legal punishment must do the rest. 

Third: Another problem solved is that Repqblics 
may have a long life and ample provisions for the 
common defense without large standing armies. A 
true Republic knows how to establish justice, secure 



31 

the general welfare, with civil and religious liberty ; 
how to be free from all entangling alliances with foreign 
nations; how to preserve all federal authority which 
belongs to the General Government without infringing 
upon the powers which, by common consent, belong to 
the several States. Popular Government and Republi- 
can Government have nowhere seen in the world an ex- 
ample like this, and the root and branch of all such 
success rests upon self-restraint, self-government and 
self-preservation. 

Fourth : Another problem solved has been the rise 
and fall of domestic slavery. The end came by the 
sword, when the sword alone could cut the knot which 
held freedom and slavery in tlie same bond of political 
union. As the States grew in numbers and people the 
slaves increased to millions, and had the end not come 
when it did, and probably as it did, there would have 
been to-day six millions of slaves in thirteen of the 
thirty-eight States of the Union. Nothing but the 
terrible medicine of cannon, infantry and artillery, 
served at times by two millions of men, was equal to 
the crisis. Tiie South invited Emancipation when it 
asked for Disunion, and the East, North and West ac- 
cepted the invitation. When, after long delay and great 
provocation. President Lincoln proclaimed Emancipa- 
tion, it was for a time a life and death struggle, and 
freedom conquered in the end and with as much real 
advantage to the South as to the North. 

In our criticisms of States where slavery was defend- 
ed, in the presence of nearly four millions of slaves, we 
may as well remember that once upon this little bland 
there were nearly i,ooo slaves, or more than one- 
fourth of its entire population. Slavery came to its end 
here as much from profit as honor. We now heartily 
thank God that " this irrepressible conflict " has depart- 
ed for all time and that no spot of earth is trodden 
by the footsteps of a slave in any State or territory of 
our American Union. In 1771, in a population of 2,847, 
there were 594 slaves here; in J790, with a population of 
3,942, there were 819 slaves. "The peculiar institu- 



32 

tion," so-called, came to its end here only when it came 
to its end elsewhere, by proper forms of law, in the 
State. The first local record of slavery I can find is in 
1755, when there were 59 male and 52 female slaves at- 
tested to in the following statement made from this 
Island to the Lt. Governor and General Assembly: 

"A list of the Neagroes of my division in the North Couteny of 
Siaten Island. JACOB CORSSEN, /7/«." 

In the list of owners, later on, Thomas Dongan is 
credited with seven males and three females. 

The final problem I shall suggest but not discuss, is 
the real age of America within and beyond the time 
when Hudson held council with the natives of this 
Island. If the history of Iceland is a true record, con- 
secutivelv, at least during each century from the year 
1,000 to the year 1,400, voyages were made in all these 
vears before the discovery of Columbus in the closing 
period of the fifteenth century. But these periods be- 
long not to the present occasion, and are to most of us 
like an untold tale. 

What we do know and understand, however, is the 
political and material growth of America and of the 
revolutions of time and events which make us what we 
are. We have seen how true it is, in a moral sense, 
that revolutions never go backward. We trace them 
direct from the memorable forces of 1688 in England 
to the Declaration of Independence in America, and the 
fulfillment of that Declaration in the two Avars with 
England, and in the greater conquest of ourselves in the 
final results of the civil war. The material growth we 
know of has been from a Province of 10,000 people to a 
State of five and a half millions ; from a metropolis of 
two or three thousand \.o a city of 1,500,000 ; from an 
Island of a score of white people to one of 40,000, and 
this last has been, and for reasons you can well imagine, 
the slowest growth of all. 

If, in conclusion, I am asked — and I am asked — the 
need or wisdom of this commemoration, the answer 
comes, in part, in our prosperous homes, in our ma- 
terial growth and wealtli, in our personal freedom, and 



33 

in our local, State and national independence. "The 
little one has become a thousand and the strong one a 
great nation." Literally this comparatively small piece 
of land, covering about seven by fourteen miles, one 
of the smallest in the State, but large enough to be 
known all the time as the gem of the seas and the island 
of beauty, h:is grown from a colony of hardly forty 
people to a county of 40,000, and the L^rovince of New 
York, in a very limited territor}'^, in comparison with 1683, 
from twelve districts to sixty counties, and in a century ot 
time from a population too small for a census to one of 
5,500,000, with towns increased from about two score in 
1683 to nearly 1,000, and beyond all these towns there are 
now in the State twenty-four grand cities and 230 villages. 
The nati(jn has added since 1783 fifty-two milli(jns to 
its population, and to its territory, in square miles, from 
820,680 in 1803 to 3.466,166 in 1883, and all these miles, 
apart from the cost of war, for 658,000,000. Beyond all 
these figures, I find in the presence of the large con- 
course of people before me, free from all the preju- 
dices of sects or parties, of persons or places, abundant 
reason why, as fellow citizens, we may assemble at least 
once or twice in the space of one or two hundred years 
to thank God for the blessings of the past and to im- 
plore their continuance for all time to come. 

Finally, you in this public manner recognize the first 
organization of the County of Richmond, which two 
hundred years ago to-day, under the first Cliarter of 
Liberties, granted by the Britisli Government, pro- 
claimed tlieir right to receive, possess and retain all the 
privileges which beh^ng to the citizens of a free com- 
monwealth. 



34 



APPENDIX A. 

Extract from Dr. Ephraim Clark's letter to Hon. 
Erastus Brooks, dated New York October 12th, 1883. 

* * * * There is but the one deed of the Guion farm, 
dated March 25th, Twenty-seventh year of His Majesty's reign, Anno 
Domini, 1675. The deed is 208 years old, and is signed by Edmund 
Andros for the British Government. The farm paid yearl}', and 
every year, unto His Royal Highness, as a quit rent, eight bush- 
els of good winter wheat. Another deed of conveyance is dated 
the 5ih of May in the nth year of the reign of " our Sovereign Lord 
King Georgk the H. Later on, one in 1738, 145 years ago, and one 
on February 22d, "in the 28th year of His Majesty's reign," 1775, 
and this deed is 128 years old. This farm has been in the Guion 
family 212 years. 



APPENDIX B. 

The Assembly convened by Gov. Dongan, first met at Port 
James, October 17, 1683, by authority of the Duke .of York, and 
under the title of "Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by 
His Royal Highness to the inhabitants of New York and its depen- 
dencies." In less than two years, when the Duke was King, or in 
March, 1685, the order came that " His Majesty doth not thinke it 
fit to confirm." 

While the Assembly of 1683 was the first popular body known 
to the Island and Province, there was in 1664, a convention of dele- 
gates at Flushing, in which Staten Island was represented by David 
DE Marest and Pierre Biljou. The object of this call was " to 
represent to the States General and West India Company the dis- 
tressed state of the country." 

November ist commemorates the date of the existence of the 
Charter of Liberties, the session of the Assembl}' which confirmed 
that charter and gave the first recognition of the rights of the people 
in the Province of New York. Richmond County, by act of the As- 
sembly on this date, was made one of the 12 shires or counties of the 
State. It was in 1663 that Gov. Dongan labored to extinguish the 
spirit of discontent, by declaring that "no laws or rates should be 
imposed for the future but by a General Assembly." In November, 
1663, it was also declared that the New York County of Richmond 
contains Staten Island and the adjacent islands. Ten 3'ears later, 
August 15-25, Pierre Biljou, Schout, and two other Schepens, were 
the local authorities of Staten Island. 



35 

By order of the king, Gov. Dongan was compelled to revoke 
tlie order for a second Assembly of the people convened in 1683. 
"You are to declare," writes King Jamks in 1C86, "our will and 
pleasure, that the said Hill or Charter passed by the late Assembly 
of New York, be forthwith repealed and disallowed, as the same is 
hereby repealed, determined and made void." The only exception 
was the imposition of taxes and authority at Gov. Dongan's good 
will and pleasure, to "permit all persons of what religions soever, 
quietly to inhabit in your government without giving them any dis- 
turbance or disquiet whatsoever by reason of their diflferent opinions 
in matters of religion, provided tliey give no disturbance to the pub- 
lic peace, nor doe molest or disquiet otheis in the full exercise of 
their religion." 



APPENDIX C. 

INDI.AN HISTORY, LIFE, MONEY, ETC. 

The Indian life and manners of the Raritans make one of the 
interesting chapters in the Island history. The aborigines had 
neither knowledge of God nor of relijfion. They believed in good 
and evil spirits, and had their medicine man or spiritual priest, 
whose chief medicine was to roar like a demon to the sick and dying. 
This priest was called Kitsinacka. He traveled where he chose, 
made all homes his own, and his order was that only maiden hands 
and elderly single women should cook his food. The dead upon 
the Island, as elsewhere, were placed in the earth uncoffined, in a 
sitting posture, resting upon a stone or block of wood, and clothed 
in all tli#1r most costly apparel, with money in hand to pay their way 
to the spirit land. Pots, kettles, platters, spoons and provisions were 
near by to make the heavenly journey one of convenience and com- 
fort. The Indians lived upon corn, fish and game, and clothed 
themselves in the skins of the beaver, the fox and the bear, which 
abounded upon the Island. Their weapons were bows and arrows, 
sharpened with fish bones or stones. The men had many wives, and 
the women cultivated the soil, the product of which was chiefly corn, 
beans, squashes and tobacco. Turkey corn was the gener.d food. 
The health of the people was marvellously good, and disease was 
rarely known among them. Blindness, lameness and cramps, and 
what we call rheumatism, were ailments quite unknown. 

The descriptiot) of these Indian men and women, as handed 
down to us by VVassknakk, (Amsterdam, 1631-32), is that they were 
a well-fashioned people, strong in constitution of body, well-propor- 
tioned, and without blemish. In a certain sense, all were astrono- 
mers. The Sun, Moon and Stars inspired their awe if not their 
reverence, and the light of the Moon following its February and 



36 

August appearance, was made a season of rejoicing with a feast of 
game and fish, and for a marvel, after the intercourse with the white 
people, the drink was pure water. 

The INDIAN CURRENCY OR LEGAL TENDER MONEY waS aS simple 

as the leather mone)' of ancient Greece. For ii8 years, both for 
New Netherlands and New England, the basis of all money was 
clamshells, and the beds of these shells, found on Long and Staten 
Islands, were the real money mints of the aborigines. The single 
white wampum bfead had the value of an English penny, and the 
black wampum beads had less value. Both were placed upon 
strings, just as the Chinese fasten their pennies. The Indian wam- 
pum was as much a manufacture as money coined in the U. S. mints, 
and the value put upon it was no more arbitrary than our present 
coined dollars, the value of which is but 15 per cent, of real value. 
The thin part of the clam shell was split off with a light hammer, 
ground into forms an inch long and half an inch thick. The pieces 
were bored longitudinally, strung upon hemp thread or the dried 
sinews of the beasts of the forests, and then sold by the chief. The 
wampum belts were the beads thus strung together The Indians 
spurned the silver dollar, and knew nothing of gold values. They 
clung to their shell money, and 200 years aeo the schoolmaster re- 
ceived his pay in wheat of wampum values, and the parents paid 12 
stuyvers in wampum for each baptism. The ferriage between New 
York and Brooklyn ten years later, 1693, was equal to eight stuyvers, 
or a silver two-pence, payable in wampum, and the same kind of 
money was used between ihe Island and New York. 

Indians as Land Speculators. — The Island had a double sale 
of its land from the Indians. One Mattano, Chief Indian and land 
speculator, was an example quite beyond the modern school. The 
land sold by him in 1651 was resold by him in 1664, and the last sale 
included Elizabethtown and stretched from the Raritan River to the 
Bay of New York. Essex County, N. J., was included in this tract, 
and the whole was sold for thirty-six pounds and fourteen shillings, 
or at the rate of ten acres for one cent. The Indian names appended 
to this sale are Mattano, Mariawome and Conascomon. More than 
one tribe or set of Chiefs claimed to be the owners or masters of the 
Island. Later on the Dutch, the English, the Quakers in 16S4 under 
William Penn, New Jersey and New Netherlands, Kings Charles and 
James, Dongan and Andros, and finally the States of New York and 
New Jersey, have all laid claim to Staten Island, and the latter State 
adhered to this claim from 1807 to 1833, when the contest was closed 
by compromise. This ended a controversy of almost 220 years as to 
the true ownership. In 1670 it was purchased for King James, In 
1688 it was adjudged to belong to New York. In 1693 it was under 
a Dutch schoui and two schepens. In 1681 Lady Carteret claimed 
the Island as a part of East Jersey, by virtue of a grant from " His 



37 

Royal Highness," dated 1669, and the Duke of York claimed it as a 
inirchase from the savages made in 1670. 

Rkvolutionary Rkucs. — The four chief Revolutionary posts 
upon the Island were at Fort Hill, Richmond Hill, Pavilion Hill, 
Herpicks' Observatory and ai! around bayonets, balls and tlint locks 
and utiier evidences of war have been found in great abundance. 



APPEDNIX D. 

GENERAL NOTES UPON STATEN ISLAND. 

I am indebted to Arihuk Halleck, Esq., and others, 
for the following combination of facts upon Indian 
and revolutionary relics, geology, mineralogy, coast 
lines, botany, &c., of the Island, received in reply to a 
request for this information : 

ArcH/Eologv. — There are two marked locations where the ab- 
origines used to congregate. One at Watchogue or Bloomfleld, in 
Northfield, and the other near the Billop House, Toitenville, and 
Princes Bay in Westfield. 

Hundreds of stone implements (pestles, mortars, hatchets, sink- 
ers, arrowheads, beads, &c.) have been found mixed up with the shells. 

Indian burying grounds have been discovered near Tottenville, 
and isolated remains at other points, notably near the old forts of 
Revolutionary times. In these grounds the skeletons were always 
accompanied by arrow heads, tom;ihawks, &c. In one of them imple- 
ments resembling knitting needles, and stone beads were used as 
ornaments. 

At Watchogue the lieap of chips and broken implements were 
evidently dropped in the manufacture of ornaments or wampum. 
The majority of arrow heads found in these shell heaps are hunt- 
ing arrows showing that the Indians were on peaceful expeditions- 
The war arrows were found in the burying grounds or near the 
old forts. 

Gkologv and Minkralogv. — There are five geological foriua- 
tions on the island : The primitive granite, whose only outcrop is 
seen just below Nautilus Hall at Tompkinsville. The archean ser- 
pentine, forming the "backbone" of the Island from Brighton Point 
to Richmond, is represented by hills of soapstone and serpentine. 
The triassic is represented by red shales and the trap dyke or 
"granite" ridge of Graniteville, extending from Port Richmond to 
Linoleumville. The cretaceous, consisting of clays and sands at 
Tottenville and Kreischerville, and finally a dtift covers all but 
a small portion near the extreme southern and western part of the 



38 

Island. Many of these formations are of great economic value. 
The trap rock at Graniteville, erroneously called "granite," is used 
for macadam and paving. Tlie clays at Kreischerville make the 
very best fire brick. Tiie drift clays at Elm Park and Green Ridge 
make fine building brick. The gravel beds of the drift yield the best 
building sand for mortar. " Asbestos" from the soapstone hills lias 
been used, when mixed with other substances, as a valuable anti- 
friction compoumd. On top of the serpentine there are local de- 
posits of "limonite" or bog iron ore, which has been very exten- 
sively worked. It is verj' rich, easily worked, but not in large 
quantities. 

The Island Coast Lines. — People now living have seen 200 
feet of the beach carried away near New Dorp, and what was once 
salt meadow is far out below low water mark. The old meadow 
turf and the stumps of cedar trees are still seen. This material thus 
borne down the beach has extended the long spit of sand at the 
mouth of Great Kills, near Giffords. A considerable deposit of mag- 
netic sand is noticed at Soutli Beach, near New Dorp, and from time 
to time projects for utilizing it have been entertained. This is a part 
of the iron washed by the river current, and in this drift is seen speci- 
mens of nearly all the rocks between New Dorp and Canada, just as 
they were transported by the continental glacier whose southern limit 
in this part of the United States was across the Southern end of 
Staten Island. This line of glacial deposits is unmistakeable, and 
the bluft at Princes Ba)'^ is one of its boldest features. Among these 
specimens are found granite from the Canadian Highlands, boulders 
of limestone from the upper Hudson River, containing fossils, and 
stray pieces of lead and iron ore from the deposits of New York or 
New England. 

Our Island Botany. — No section of the country east of the 
Mississippi, of an equal area, is as rich in plant life as Staten Island. 
Local botanists have recorded about 1,300 plants apart fropi those 
grown by cultivation. This is due to the great diversity in phy- 
siographic conditions. Salt and fresh water, woods, dry hills and 
swamps are all here about. These and the different geological foi- 
mations give rise to a great variety in the flora. Fifty of these 
species are found in no other county in the State, and these are 
mostly found on the little piece of cretacea near Tottenville, which 
is a continuation of the Amboy clay beds. Twentj^-two species new 
to the State of New York have been been found within the last three 
years. The 'trailing arbutus" or " Ma)' flower" is gathered here by 
basketfuls every spring, as it is the nearest point to New York 
where it is known to grow. It is likely to be exterminated in a few 
years. The " salt hay " here is a species of rush found upon our 
salt meadows. Water cress is grown extensively in streams on the 
west side. The original plants were probably native here. 



39 

Our forest growth is an important factor in our prosperity, or 
will be a few years hence, if we expect to obtain our water supply 
from the Island. The water courses, now only full of water when it 
rains, were formerly constant running brooks. Old springs are 
dried up, and ponds which used to overflow continually by a running 
stream have become either muddy pools, stagnant swamps, or are 
obliterated. 

The Sanitary Aspect of the Island. — Living springs and 
running water do not produce malaria, but swamps and stagnant 
pools are a real danger, and assist in breeding mosquitos. 

Zoology and Ornithology. — Formerly deer, foxes and many 
other large animals are known to have lived and bred liere. Now 
we only have squirrels, rabbits, skunks, muskrats, and other small 
rodents, with peijiaps a few weasels. 

With tiie disappearance of the woods the game leaves us. A 
few quail and woodcock are still to be found and some wild pi- 
geon. Snipe are occasionally plentiful. Stray ducks find their way 
here. In severe winters an eagle is sometimes seen. The patient 
fisherman can even yet hook a trout in some of our streams and 
ponds. Seals visit us and would remain if not disturbed. 



Congressman Pkrrv Belmont, upon being intro- 
duced, said : — 

I hope you will pardon me if I find myself utterly 
unable to address you as I wished and liad intended 
Perhaps it would have been better had F not attempted 
to have come here at all, feeling unwell as I do, but I 
preferred to be with you to-day even under these cir- 
cumstances. I could not be indifferent to the reliearsal 
of Staten Island's past, not alone because I can never 
approacli its shores without a feeling of gratitude and 
affection for the friendliness which I have always found 
here, but no American can ignore these patriotic ob- 
servances. 

I trust you will accept my excuse, and believe how 
sincere are my regrets that I can contribute so little to 
the pleasure and glories of this day. (Applause.) 



40 

Hon. Algernon S. Sullivan was next introduced, 
and spoke as follows : — 

Citizens of Staten Island. — I would have very little 
sense of the propriety of the hour if I did not recognize 
that the sun, nearly at the horizon, commands us to be 
very brief. Mr. Brooks has left nothing to be said in 
his review of the important historical events that would 
interest not only you but every American. I have 
listened to his review, perfect and interesting as it has 
been, until 1 almost forgot the actual scenes an^iind me, 
and I could see the blue haze as it hung over the same 
hills that are before us two hundred years ago to-day, 
when, amidst the Indian summer, the county seat of 
Richmond was establislied at Stoney Brook ; when I can 
almost hear lo-day the rustling of the same tinted leaves 
as the winds blew them about on that first of November, 
1683, when he alluded to the possible necessities by gov- 
ernment of enforcing obedience to law against those who 
may come to this country, and yet be refractory. I re- 
member that, which for some reason he did not chose to 
mention, that on that starting day of Richmond County 
your first and only building at Stoney Brook was a jail 
(laughter). I was exceedingly interested as he ran over 
the list of the old names. 1 was glad to know that you 
have many who can record themselves as lineal descen- 
dants of those who gave to your beautiful Island its 
social distinguishing characteristics. I was very happy 
that after the diligent hunt, which I supposed he had 
made of all baptismal records, that he was not able 
to record in the line of descent any of the residents, 
and those who are present to-day, whose parentage 
through two generations he traced back to the first in- 
habitant of that county jail (laughter). I have not the 
slightest idea that Mr. Brooks, with his impartial devo- 
tion to the truth of history, would have omitted, no 
matter which one of these gentlemen upon the stand it 
struck, to have gone back to the jail books and have 
pointed the historic finger at them (laughter). But, 
gentlemen, whether these memorial days have become so 



41 

frequent in this last decade that they themselves are 
takins^ their places in history, and their own history and 
their own inlluence is to be considered and to be re- 
corded, one thought occurs to me, tliat the time has 
come to ask each one of these memorial celebrations: 
Of what use are you? What are you for? What do 
you do ? What pulse do you awaken? What facts do 
you record? What names do you perpetuate? What 
sentiments do you honor, and thus what sentiments do 
you educate in yourselves? 

I told you 1 was thinking, as that interesting series 
of facts passed in review, that I fear we are in danger of 
enkindling one serious peril in all these commemorative 
exercises. We are in danger of looking only at one 
line of facts. We are in danger of building up a spirit 
of self-complaisance, of self-conceit, self-glorification, 
and over-dressing certain facts and certain incidents, and 
we delude ourselves with the notion of our unexceptional 
progress and present secure position ; we delude our- 
selves and hide some things that we ought not to forget, 
so that we may come to think after we have one of these 
interesting celebrations to commemorate certain things, 
we must have another to mention with less complaisance 
things which are allowed on that day to be forgotten. 
For instance, in the very, very few minutes in which I 
will speak, let me recur to that same incident with which 
I opened my few remarks as an illustration. The sea- 
sons have come and gone through twice a hundred years. 
Those same leaves have rustled down Stoney Brook. No 
notice has been taken of them, and the generations have 
sunk like them into unrecorded graves. Society has 
gone on and wealth has accumulated, and all the signs 
of luxury have multiplied and population has increased, 
but you have a jail still. Vou have crime ; you have 
poverty. We have with all our progress. You have not 
got very far. I say you — none of us have in this coun- 
try on the path of solving the great problems that 
underlie and make the condition of a really happy and 
good community. The problems of labor and property, 
the problems of crime, the problem of social evil, and 



4i 

all that really goes behind the question of civil liberty. 
What progress have these people who occupy the Senti- 
nel Island of New York — what progess have they made? 
I ask it now because the thought crowded upon me 
again and again as I listened to this eloquent review by 
Mr. Brooks. Has this series of celebrations, centennial 
and otherwise, in the State of New York ? Is it to end 
without this decade being constituted by wise, reflect- 
ing, and honest people, with the starting point for the 
next century, wherein the effort shall be not only to lay 
the foundation for material prosperity, to provide means 
for common schools for education, not merely to perpet- 
uate and carry out in a general application the broad 
principles of the Declaration of Independence in respect 
to free and equal rights, but shall we recognize the op- 
portunity, which always begets obligation and duty, the 
opportunity to work out under conditions more favor- 
able than humanity has ever known before, some of these 
problems that will change the unequal conditions of 
men ; that will put into the power of the larger propor- 
tion of people the means of making them not only 
barely able to subsist, but make them rise in the scale 
of humanity, to develop his finer side — an honest man- 
hood and finer womanhood, which is worth more than 
all the conditions and all considerations of property and 
of wealth ? Are we going to address ourselves to. solving 
some of those problems is the question which at this 
late hour is the one I would put here as constituting a 
worthy and fitting inquiry as belonging to and legiti- 
mately coming out as the fruit and blossom from such 
a celebration as that we have had to-day. One thing 
more. I hoped Mr. Brooks would have continued his 
extensive review, as I hope he has with his pen, by re- 
calling to our recollection that when Richmond was 
constituted a county it was at a time when the history 
of the world was being illuminated as perhaps it never 
was before by men, in the chamber of whose souls had 
passed the angel of genius, and of wisdom, and of reli- 
gion. I hoped he would have found time to mention 
that it was in that age that John Bunvan had lived, and 



43 

Richard Baxter and John Dryden liad lived, and all 
of that host of worthies without whose names the litera- 
ture and religion and politics of our race would be 
under an eclipse. I remember when he was talking 
about the maxims of civil liberty, how much this coun- 
try owed in respect of its ciyil institutions and its liberty 
foundation to the writings of one political martyr, which 
was almost coincident with the foundation of the Coun- 
ly. I refer to liim whose name I almost cherish — 
Algernon Sidney, whose writings I know were again 
and again the holy words and political ten command- 
ments of those who were framing the Constitution. 
(Applause.) 

Hon. Henry J. Scudder was then intrt^duced and 
spoke as follows : 

Mr. Chairman., and Citizens of Richmond County. — I 
shall occupy but a few moments of your time — for the 
day has well nigh gone — and devote myself brielly to the 
consideratii)n of an event preceding by a single day that 
of the establishment of your County; an event of far 
greater value than the simple act of changing the name 
of Staten Island to Richmond County, for except that a 
High SherifiF instead of a Deputy was conferred upon 
this Island by the Act of Nov. ist, 1683, there was no 
other change effected in it as a political portion of the 
Province of New York than the change of name and 
title. Your County embraced and still embraces the 
same area as that conveyed to I^ovelace by the true 
owners and Sachems of Staten Island in idio. This 
vast and intelligent assemblage is gathered for some 
higher purpose than the celebration of a change in 
name. It is hereto commemorate the establishment of the 
principle of political representation, of tiie right of the 
the people to participate in the government controlling 
their liberties and properly, and both these great prin- 
ciples were embodied in the Act of the Assembly of 
1683, and confirmed by the Provincial Governor on. the 
30th October in that year. To tlie securement of these. 



44 

the Dutch inhabitants of the Province contributed less 
than the colonists upon the eastern end of Long Island, 
for the very obvious reasons that the Dutch stood in re- 
lation to the English as a conquered people, and those 
of Staten Island Avere within easy reach of the power of 
the Colonial Government seated at New York. 

The Puritans, fleeing from England to escape the 
rigor of laws designed to suppress the exercise of con- 
science in matters of religious faith and worship, came 
to the new world with convictions respecting liberty in 
the Church and State that no despotism could overcome 
or impair. Such of them as established colonies upon 
Long Island were beyond the control of the West India 
Company, and without tlie charters to which the settle- 
ments in New Englan-d looked for authority in the regu- 
lation of their public affairs. They established small 
democracies, and were independent of all other control 
than that of their own choice vmtil the conquest of New 
Amsterdam in 1664, by Nicolls, commissioned by the 
Duke of York, connected them, under the royal patent 
of the Duke, with the Province of New York. 

Their devotion to the cause of civil liberty could be 
abated neither by promise or threat, and their demands 
for recognition in legislation through popular assem- 
blies continued under the harsh impositions of Love- 
lace and Andros. These demands, and the constant 
resistance to personal authority emanating from the 
Duke, so far embarrassed his Royal Highness' revenue 
from the Province that he seriously contemplated the 
surrender of his territory to the Crown. William Penn, 
called to his private closet for advice, urged conces- 
sion to the people of the Province, and out of these two 
sources, the dread of financial distress in the privy 
purse and faith in the wisdom of Penn, came the resolu- 
tion of the Duke to grant the petition for representative 
government. The Assembly of 1683, the Charter of 
Liberties and Privileges, the establishment of Rich- 
mond County, the acknowledgment of the people as 
a power in legislation were consequences so fruitful of 
important political results, so pregnant with tendencies 



45 

to a lietlcr and larger civilization, that you gather in 
llioiisaiKls upon this two hundredth Anniversary to 
render your earnest and grateful liomage and reverence 
for the grand blessings flowing from the Acts, of which 
our friend, Mr. Brooks, has eloquently informed us. 
Commemorating the cause and mindful of the effects, 
will you not bear from this meeting to your firesides 
some resolution to advance civilization beyond the limits 
it achieved under the Charter and during the two cen- 
turies ended.? 

You encounter to-day questions as momentous as 
those our ancestors met in colonial times ; questions as 
closely concerning the welfare of the State and virtue 
of the citizen as those menacing the civil liberty of the 
subjects of Charles or James. You should be as well 
equipped for their solution. 

Our great civil struggle for the preservation of the 
Union embedded in our people respect for autliority. 
While the epaulette symbolized authority we yielded 
deference to military sentiment. When the soldier 
sank into the comnivuiity as an ordinary citizen, there 
came an easy and natural transfer of respect from the 
armed officer to the commissioned office holder. A re- 
ciprocal consideratiijn of relative positions exalted the 
civil incumbent into leadership, and the office holder 
assumed the tenure of office as of personal right, rather 
than delegated service. Leaderships in public affairs 
presented the airs of inheritance, and forgot that the 
people were masters. This sentiment is to be overcome, 
and the representative of the people, in whatever ca- 
pacity, relegated to his true position in political station 
as the agent or servant, and no longer the iruvestment of 
power to be transmitted by him to successors of his 
choice. 

Another question of the times is the appropriate 
disposition of woman in the distribution of political and 
social powers in the community. The forms of social 
organizations are varying with a rapidity that empha- 
•sizes the intense activity of present thought. There 
are phases opening where woman seems necessary to 



46 

the complete moral development, but where siie is im- 
potent unless encouraged by the State. • 

More serious still is the adjustment of two forces 
moving in the relation of sovereign and subject, creator 
and creature. These are the State and Federal pow- 
ers and the corporations they have instituted. The 
consideration of the limits essential to the preservation 
of judicious control over these institutions, without 
impairing the comforts and profitable conveniences 
they afford the citizen, presents difficulties that impress 
us with the importance of the subject. It must soon 
be solved, if we hope to escape the sad effects of com- 
bined individual power of talent and wealth extend- 
ing so far as to measure forces with the State. Civiliza- 
tion is greatly menaced when a handful of men, en- 
trenched under a statute conferring upon them limited 
franchises, can defy the State that conferred them. 

Other subjects will engage your patriotic thoughts 
as you move homeward this evening. I have called 
your attention to some out of the assured belief you 
would hasten to apply the relief. 

Jefferson — patriot, scholar, thinker, — witnessing 
the frenzy of the Parisian mob, wrote to his friend here, 
"Educate the people." It was a cry from his heart. 
It should go to your hearts. " Educate the people ! " 
The clear way to future welfare for citizen or State lies 
in that injunction. Applying it, we may preserve the 
institutions happily framed for us, we may enlarge the 
civilization sheltered under those institutions, and to 
all limes and peoples we may offer them, and the nation 
with its genius and policy, as " Rivers of water in a dry 
place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 

Hon. George William Curtis was introduced, and 
spoke as follows: — 

Fellow Citizens of Staten Island. — There remains but 
one W'-rd to say. It is a happy day for this County, and 
the great work has been well done. Our friend, Mr. 
Sullivan, fears that this day will teach us to be unduly 



47 

vain and will breed a conceit in the breasts of all who 
took part in it. I say to him, upon your behalf, that 
wlicn he came to Staten Island he came to the County 
which is distiny^uished for the most humble and most 
modest population in the State of New York (applause). 
That after to-day, fellow citizens, I say to him also and 
in your behalf, that every man of us and every woman 
upon the Island will be a hundred-fold prouder than 
ever before that they may call themselves Staten Island- 
ers (applause). Long ago, as Mr. Brooks has told us in 
his eloquent review, long ago the last soldier of foreign 
power and force passed down the bay and disappeared. 
The last official document of English power within the 
domain of the United States was penned within gun- 
shot of the place where you stand. The last shot of the 
Revolution was fired, as he told us, at Staten Island, and 
that was the parting benediction upon this County of 
the foe we had vanquished. Yet remember that from 
the first day that Hudson saw this County, when he, an 
Englishman, surrounded by a crew of mingled Dutch- 
men and Englishmen, saw this property first — from that 
day to this tlie supreme dominion over all this territory 
has been as'sumed by the Dutch and English race. Fifty 
years of Dutch, more than a hundred of English since 
the Revolution. The Dutch and English planted in 
America, and if in more recent years that power has 
been contested by the men of other lands and of other 
races, they, too, found, as they became also Americans, 
that they were constrained ; they, too, were moulded by 
the great constitutional treatise of the Dutch and of the 
English, civil and religious liberty, the common school 
as the foundation of the State and an unswerving liberty 
to law. And although, fellow citizens, it be true, as the 
orators have told us, that the great Charter of Privileges 
came with Dongan, never forget that that charter was 
simply the will of the Royal Duke, and that the princi- 
ples of that charter,! true and eternal as they are, were 
not planted in the government of this County, of this 
State, of this country by any superior or any supreme 
will, for American liberty does not rest upon the will of 



48 

any despot, but was asserted and maintained by the 
American people only against the embattled might of 
royal power (applause). Now, then, one word from a 
Staten Islander to Staten Islanders. From the time 
that the British fleet disappeared beyond Sandy Hook ; 
long after the Confederation failed; long after the Union 
sprang out from the brains of the men who framed it, 
like Minerva from the brain of Jove ; long after all was 
passed, the prosperity of Staten Island still languished. 
As we believe, who live here, the fairest and most con- 
venient it is to the great city of New York, a silver re- 
tirement soothed by the breath of the ocean, yet close 
to the heart of the great metropolis, Staten Island should 
have been the seat of a great, of a prosperous, of a pro- 
gressive community, and long ago it should have been 
the model county upon which all the counties of the 
Imperial State might have been framed (applause). But 
what slumberous spell has held this County fast.'' Ever 
since then the solitary traveller in the interior of the 
Island might well have expected to meet some belated 
and straying mariner from Hudson's Half Moon. He 
might well have expected to be greeted, as two hundred 
years ago, by some grimy soldier of the Thirty Years 
War, of William of Orange, or of any great commander 
of the time, who would have welcomed him to his soli- 
tary home, have shot deer for him from his window as 
for those men there was shot and served for his break- 
fast wild turkey that abounded on this Island. I think if 
Rip Van Winkle had fallen into his long nap upon 
Staten Island instead of the Kaaterskill Mountains, when 
he recovered and opened his eyes he would have ex- 
claimed as he gazed: '■'■ Donner wetter, tausand teu/els." 
This is the same old place that it was twenty years ago 
(applause and laughter). Well, fellow citizens, I believe 
that this day shows that a Rip Van Winkel is no longer 
the genius of Staten Island (applause). This day shows 
us all that the slumberous spell is broken. Whatever 
in any community fosters local pride and stimulates 
local interest develops that public spirit which is the 
mainspring of prosperity and of progress in every State. 



49 

In the old Greek fable, as you remember, the sculptor 
carved his perfect statue, but it lay motionless and cold 
and dead. It waited the magic touch that should thrill 
it into life. Mere lies our Island, fair as when Hudson 
first beheld it, still, as the Duke called it, the pleasantest 
and most commodiest seat in all the land; and to-day 
our beating and answering hearts are the promise that the 
germs of that spirit is opening its eyes and about to put 
f(^rth its hand which shall bring the Island stilT nearer 
to the great city ; shall reclaim all its waste and watery 
spaces; shall cover its gentle, shining iieights with 
cheerful and beautiful rural homes ; shall fill its air 
with the hum of clieerful industry, and sliall justify to 
every Staten Islander tlie promise that tlie beauty of our 
Island holds to every passerby and to every stranger 
who lands upon our shores. And then shall it happen 
when we are gone, when our names arc forgotten, and 
one hundred and two hundred years hereafter our chil- 
dren's children in the remotest generations come hereto 
celebrate the fourth centennial anniversary of the Island 
and to pay their tribute of homage to us, long vanished 
old fogies of to-day, the spirit which this dav, please 
God, shall stimulate in this County, shall make the 
County what long ago it should have been, in Shakes- 
peare's words : — 

" This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
The most resplendani jewel in th' imperial crown," 

of the Imperial Commonwealth of New York. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Hon. L. Bradford Prince, on being introduced, 
spoke as follows : — 

My good fortune brought nie from the home in the 
far distant West, when I could be present on this historic 
occasion, near to my old home in the First District, of 
the first State in the United States, tor it is one of those 
grand historic occasions, and so memorable that every 
one feels it an honor to be there, and surelv to-day, as 
Mr. Curtis has said, it has been well done. Staten 



50 

Island has honored itself in honoring its record through 
these two centuries of time, and in bringing back the 
memory of that day so long ago. Within the last four 
weeks it has been my fortune to be present at two great 
historical commemorations. One, two .weeks ago, at 
Newburgh, at the centennial of the last event of the 
Revolutionary War. They were both of them great his- 
toric occasions. They were both of them about whicli 
clustered magnificent associations, and great efforts had 
been made to make them magnificent spectacles, and 
they were so ; but I was proud to-day, as an old citizen 
of this district, as one who had been among you in years 
past and received of you more of kindness than I de- 
served, to see that this celebration fell short in no 
whit of those about which, perhaps, larger constituen- 
cies had clustered. Mr. President, at this late moment 
I should not have taken the floor, even for a minute, 
were it not that every occasion like this requires a kind 
of benediction. I come, sir, from the oldest of these 
celebrations that has ever been held on American soil, 
in the city in which I live, the City of Santa Fe. For 
six weeks this summer we had our celebration, not of a 
centennial, not of a bi-centennial, but of what we called 
our tertic-millenium, the celebration of the third in the 
age of the oldest town in the United States ; and as the 
young man, who attaining his majority, may have a 
celebration, and the older members of the family come 
to give their places on that occasion for him, so in this 
new community but two hundred years old, on this oc- 
casion, where you celebrate but two centennials of time, 
I come on behalf of the older civilization of the South- 
west ; come from the oldest town in the United States; 
come from our third of a thousand years and give to 
you that benediction, and say to you through all the 
centuries to come, may God bless Staten Island. (Ap- 
plause.) 



51 
THE ISLE OF THE BAY. 



BY JAMES BURKE. 



I. 

Up from the waters that come as the daughters 
Of Neptune, the lord of the wide-spreading Main, 
Bringing, with pleasure, love, homage and treasure 
To lay on the Altar of Liberty's Fane, — 
Rises serenely, rosplendant and queenly. 
As far-famed Atlantis, in Hercules' day, — 
Sweet Staten Island, of valley and highland, 
So fair that we name her The Pride of the Bay ! 

II. 

Summer caressing, while breathing the blessing 
A mother invokes on her daughter, a bride. 
Her miniature mountains and silver-spring fountains 
Are dimpled and rippled with beauty and pride. 
Valleys are smiling with pleasures beguiling. 
And terrace-like hills from her shores roll away ; 
Green are the meadows and cool are the shadows 
Of grottoes and groves in our Isle of the Bay ! 

III. 

Winter, though bringing his terrors and flinging 

Them down at her feet with a pitiless hand. 

Yet is her ardor sufficient to guard her, 

And laughter defies him on lake and on land. 

Springtime poetic and Autumn pathetic. 

Are seasons whose charms have a limitless sway. 

Yet do they chasten tiieir garments and hasten 

To visit their homes on our Isle of the Bay ! 

IV. 

Add to what's charming, her fishing and farming. 
Her soil and its products both racy and rare, 
Shore lines combining, by Nature's designing. 
A wharfage for commerce unrivalled elsewhere ; 
Gardens and goodlands, with wildways and woodlands. 
And water abundant as music in May, 
Then Use and Beauty unite in the duty, 
An Eden to make of Our Isle of the Bay ! 



52 



V. 

History rolling its gates back, and tolling 
The echoes of ages receding from sight, 
Figures are walking and voices are talking, 
That show us our progress to Liberty's light ; 
First the red foeman and next the Dutch yeoman. 
Succeeded by Dongan's Colonial sway ; 
Hanover's scepter then subjugate kept her 
Till Washington rescued Our Isle of the Bay ! 

VI. 

But though her story be studded with glory. 

And Nature hath decked her with grandeur and grace 

Yet are these phases less worthy of praises 

Than this that here Love finds a fit dwelling place. 

Refuge from dangers, both natives and strangers, 

Black, white or red, or the sons of Cathay, 

All here abiding, in Friendship confiding. 

Find welcome and weal in our Isle of the Bay ! 



EPILOGUE. 



Two hundred years a beauteous isle. 
Two centuries of modest fame, 
Have passed away through Times defile. 
Since Richmond County had a name. 
Vicissitudes her story knows, 
But only such as temples fear. 
A change of masters and such woes 
As foreign troopers quartered here. 
Whose hateful presence filled the air 
With crime and curse and midnight row. 
Till fighting freemen drove elsewhere 
The hireling soldiers of Lord Howe ! 
The march of armied hosts since then 
Has oft been heard within our gates ; 
But 'twas the tread of friendly men 
Who loved but these United States ! — 
By mothers, daughters, sisters, wives. 
As brave as those of ancient Greece, 
Encouraged to devote their lives. 
To fight and die or conquer Peace. — 
To a!l our wars in Freedom's cause, 
Our Staten Island sent her sons, - 
Defenders of the Nation's laws. 
They wielded swords and pointed guns. 



S3 



And ever will they thus be found, 
Among the first to join the fray, 
While Freedom soars above the ground, 
Or Staten Island rides the Bay! 



The S. I. Quartette Clubs sang the " Star Spangled 
Banner," and added greatly to the enjoyment of the 
occasion. 

The meeting then closed by offering of a resolution 
of thanks to the committee havitig the celebration in 
charge, the oflicers of the day, and the speakers who 
addressed the meeting, and a benediction by Rev. Mr. 
Palmer of Tottenville. 

In the evening a grand display of fireworks took 
place at Stapleton, and thus closed the exercises of the 
Bi-Centennial of Richmond County. 



54 

FREDERICK WHITE, Treasurer, in account with BI-CENTENNIAL 
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

Dr. 

1883. 

Nov. I. — To collections as follows : 
Castleton — 

D. R. Norvell $55000 

Robert Moore 233 00 

Read Benedict 150 00 

R. B. Whitteniore 50 00 $983 00 

MiDDI.ETOWN — 

Fred'k White 137 00 

Geo. Bechtel loo 00 

Philip Wolff 1 20 00 

A. G. Methfessel 50 00 407 00 

SOUTHFIEI.D — 

Benj. Brown '. 125 00 

D. J. Tysen no 00 

Natli'l Marsh 50 00 

C. A. Hart 25 00 310 00 

Westfield — 

B, H. Warford loo 00 

P. G. UUman 55 00 

M. Conklin 27 00 

Jesse Oakley 20 00 202 00 

NORTHFIELD — 

J. H. Vanclief, Sr 2800 

A. Crocheron 26 50 

Wm. Ricard 25 00 79 50 

Total $1,981 50 

Cr. 

1883. 

Nov. I. — Badges $6000 

Entertainment of guests 65 00 

Benjamin Brown, Music 784 00 

Entertainment of Artillery and others 27 05 

Stenographers 25 00 

Rent of Rooms 25 00 

Transportation Cars 80 00 

Carriages 123 50 

Tent and Platform, &c 134 00 

Fireworks 300 00 

Printing Programmes and Books of Proceedings 357 95 

$1,981 50 

E. & O. E. 

New York, Nov. 9, 1883. 

FREDERICK WHITE, 

Treasurer. 



OC' 



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1R45 



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